Many Hamden Roads Impassable, Town Looking for Help

The storm is over, but the headache it has left behind in Hamden is likely to linger for days.

Town Public Works crews are out in force cleaning up after the Blizzard of 2013, but it's slow going and likely to take some considerable time before the more than three feet of snow is cleared from town roads.

"Many roads are impassable," Chief Administrative Officer Curt Leng said Saturday afternoon. That's because many Public Works snowplow drivers have not been able to plow the streets but instead were diverted to helping police and fire officials navigate the roads overnight and into Saturday.

During the overnight hours fire engines police cars and ambulances were getting stuck in the snow and they responded to emergencies and required Public Works plows and payloaders to get them out and escort them down the snowy roads. 

"Public Works needed to reallocate a lot of its resources last night to help police and fire get to emergency calls and had to stop plowing all but main roadways." Leng said.

"There continues to be an allocation of resources to emergency services," he said, "but Public Works is back to putting the majority of its efforts to clearing the roads."

But it's still going to take time to get those roads clear because of the sheer amount of snow on them, he said, so much that just plowing them won't clear them. It's going to take actually removing the snow from the roads to get them clear, he said.

"The snow is so severe that plowing can't be done in most areas," Leng said, "and they are instead scooping, dumping and hauling the snow --similar to the leaf operation -- which is effective, but much slower than traditional plowing.

"The town is working on getting additional resources in from the state, the National Guard and private contractors to assist."

Gov. Dannel Malloy's traffic ban on all roads statewide except for emergency vehicles remains in effect, as does Mayor Scott Jackson's state of emergency for the town.