News

Snow, love it or hate it, we have to deal with it
By Denise Duda

After another big snowstorm last weekend, The Monument asked people who were out and about on Monday how they felt about all the snow we've gotten lately.

At a busy New Gloucester Town Hall
we polled three townspeople. "I think it's horrendous," said Gina Sawyer. "We have a long dirt road built last year- Winsaw Road. It's more than 1/4 mile and the town doesn't plow it so we have to. It's been really expensive this year." Last year the Sawyers only had three storms and it rained after each one, so they didn't have a regular person lined up to plow this season. She said all the snow has been costly and overwhelming. Above: Snow clearing in Gray Village. The Monument: Prata photo

George Baker didn't mind the snow at all. "Due to the fact that I'm retired it doesn't bother me all that much," he said. "I do feel sorry for the people who have to go to work in it. I just look out and watch it snow."

Lila Littlefield stopped for a moment on the steps of the town hall and looked out at the snow. "I like snow because I do dog sledding around the acreage at my house. I haven't been able to do as much as I used to because the dogs are getting older, but I have three huskies-they love it." Her six kennels are buried in snow and she has to shovel them all out, but she said, "I like to shovel; it's exercise. I love being outside in the air after being inside all the time." Littlefield remembers getting a lot of snow as a kid and making tunnels in the big piles. "We'd build a fort and wait in it for the school bus to come."

Gray resident Amanda Perkins was just leaving the Gray Town Hall when The Monument asked her how she felt about all the snow. "It's here. I don't mind, spring is just around the corner," she said. "But I'm nine months pregnant and this is the first year I can't snowmobile. It's killing me." Left, forget fly away home, these birds could walk there. The Monument: Duda photo

At Gray Supermarket, Dennis Kelly of New Gloucester responded, "It's snow. It's coming every year. I wish we would have had more back in December, I would have liked a white Christmas." Appletree resident Carleen Wallace also thought it was nice to look at but added, "It's pretty bad when you have to wait until 3 in the afternoon to get plowed out." She's an organist but wasn't able to get to work Sunday morning. A fellow resident added, "But we do enjoy it or we'd be in Florida."

The Monument asked Kevin Doyle, the new Public Works director in New Gloucester, how their department is dealing with the heavy snow fall this year. He acknowledged that it was a snowier than average year but said that they had been pretty fortunate so far with the equipment. He said that there haven't been many repairs but the equipment is starting to get old. "I've only been director here for ten weeks but there have been two storms every week. Its trial by fire I guess," said Doyle.

"It's starting to get to some of the guys. We ought to be thinking about sweeping and our spring and summer projects but there's no end in sight." Doyle said that now his main concern is that if the snow melts too fast or there is too much rain it could damage the roads. With so much snow, the water isn't able to drain into the ditch and runs down the road instead, causing erosion. When asked how their budget was holding up Doyle said, "We're over budget for salt but under budget on sand and we're within our parameters for overtime."

Jon Rioux from the New Gloucester Fire Department said that with all the snow their biggest problem is that people aren't clearing out their mailboxes, so the house numbers aren't identifiable if they have to respond to a call. The other mistake people make during a storm, according to Mr. Rioux, is not clearing their driveways down next to the street where the fire department would have to get in. He also added that in a storm like the one a couple of weeks ago, with poor visibility due to blowing snow, the department's response time is considerably affected.

Mr. Rioux explained that with a volunteer force they first have to get their private vehicles out and then travel to the to the station before responding to a call. During the same storm two weeks ago, the significant winds meant that in addition to the challenges in visibility, fire departments had to deal with a lot of downed wires and blown transformers as well.