Epic Brigantine Snowfall. Plowing Problems and Frozen Back Bay

Brigantine resident, Bruno Iocona: Two winters ago, I sent a detailed and pretty well thought out letter to the mayor, the Public Works Director and my councilman for the 4th ward. No response that year so I sent it again the next year. No response to that one either.

I won’t bother to recreate the entire thing but perhaps you could ask the city fathers why they insist – with the number of divided streets with those lovely and well maintained medians like we have on Harbor Beach, Lagoon, Bayshore and others – to plow snow onto the property owner’s driveway rather than reverse plowing and pushing the snow onto the medians.

Since so many of us in Brig that are full-time residents are also OLD – it is disturbing to spend six hours clearing your driveway and then watching ‘the Boys’ come down the boulevard and plow a four foot high pile of slush right back onto the area that you just cleared.

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It is not that I think that the Public Works ‘Boys’ enjoy it (maybe they do, who knows?) but I’m pretty sure that most of us don’t enjoy working that hard and then having to clear the now frozen mix of snow and slush three or four times especially now that it weighs three times as much.

With as many police cars as we have in our arsenal (as well as police) we could easily block the streets for the time it takes to reverse plow. That solves the safety problems. Maybe there is some other reason? Perhaps you guys can find out. Obviously – the mayor and my city councilman have no interest in responding to me. What say you?


Brigantine
Bruno Iocona:  result of current plow operations.

Bruno Iocona:  – this is the result of the current plow operations. My Wrangler’s bumper is about 42 inches high – you can see that the plowed snow is at least a foot or 18 inches above that and blocking the driveway exit. Note that the driveway itself is virtually clear of that blowing snow. The poor man removing that plowed snow from the street so that we can get the Jeep out may drop dead of a heart attack because ‘the Boys’ did such a good job of pushing five feet of slush onto my property. This is nasty and is easy to fix. 

Emil Hibian: As a retired BPW employee, It is best not to push the snow on the center islands.

The streets are sloped from the center to the curb and with the snow melting in the daytime and wetting the streets it turns into black ice at night and makes for very bad conditions. When you have a major snow storm if you need to clear your driveway before the streets are plowed you should throw the snow to the right when you are facing the street so the plow doesn’t put the snow back in your driveway. I hope the explanation helps. The BPW crew does a great job clearing the streets, working with old equipment for the most part and very long hours

Barbara Ermilio: As I know the city is doing the best they can with plowing…can you please start plowing the alleys. There are many of us that can’t get our cars out still and need to go to work. Also please stop plowing the ends of the alleys in when plowing the main streets. If I could shovel it I would.

Frank Panetta: Good job only on main streets. Shit job everywhere else. Plowed down the middle of the street making a two way street one way and piling snow up another three feet from the driveway making it more difficult to get out of driveways. Plow curb to curb the first time and there won’t be a need to do it over again. The little extra time spent doing it right will be worth it.
Fran Mckenna: Doing the best they can people don’t appreciate the hard and long hrs city employee’s give

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2 thoughts on “Epic Brigantine Snowfall. Plowing Problems and Frozen Back Bay”

  1. I’m sure the city employees are being well paid for the hard work… the long hours probably mean overtime pay… so- thanks, but they are doing their job and getting paid well.

  2. This is in response to Emil – the retired DPW employee: With respect; I hear you on that one. And as a guy who before retirement HAD to be at work no matter what the weather (small biz owner) I get the dangers of black ice. But we’re talking Harbor Beach Blvd, Lagoon, Bayshore, et al – not the I-95 or the GSP off ramps. Let’s get real – the danger of black ice incidents in this town is minimal since we have very restricted speed limits and an unlimited supply of sand to coat roads that DO have an icing condition. Seriously – compared to a few ‘accidental’ cardiac events for those of us who are ‘banging on the door of being old’ – who in the heck is going to worry about slowing down and driving more carefully? In the winter? On icy roads? I don’t care to make this a long drawn out discussion – the city fathers will do what they want. I was simply putting a thought out there. Excuse me, but I have to shovel the driveway exit again – apparently they felt the need to clear the Bike Path lane and pushed more snow onto my property.

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