Someone with more years of experience on the job would have known Cottage Street is lined with houses on one side and a park on the other — an ideal space for dumping snow.
But last week, when 20 inches of snow fell, that experience was missing. With two-thirds of the Department of Public Works staff having two years or less on the job, most of the employees who took to the roads the morning of Jan. 26 to begin cleanup had not yet seen such a snowstorm. The most recent comparable storm, Department of Public Works Director Jay Marcotte said, was in 2022.
“In the past, our senior [staff] would know there’s no houses on the other side,” said Marcotte.
Staff clocked in that Sunday morning, and some worked through to noon on Tuesday, Marcotte said. Crews started hauling snow Sunday evening from locations in town where snow storage wasn’t possible— the high school, for example.
In the event of a snowstorm, Marcotte has an on-call list 26 names deep.
“Some of these guys worked 37-38 hours straight,” Marcotte said.
“They were spent,” added Town Administrator Patrice Garvin.
Between staffing and renting the hauling equipment, the storm is expected to cost the town roughly 25% of its $815,000 snow and ice budget, according to Garvin, though she noted officials are still tallying the cost. Fortunately, the town saves some money by having its own snow storage location at the incinerator site on Concord Avenue.
“This [storm] tested us,” said Garvin.
“Two feet of snow isn’t something that comes along every day,” said Garvin.
Since the storm, the town has worked to streamline communications to alert residents of local emergencies, school delays or closures, trash announcements and other helpful information. To stay the most up-to-date, residents are encouraged to visit belmont-ma.gov/emergency and sign up for the emergency notification system.
“There are too many silos,” Marcotte said of the communication efforts before and during the recent storm.
Parking bans had to be decided. School officials had their call to make — does school get canceled or is a delay sufficient? The library, meanwhile, has its own body of elected officials who decide whether to close the library during a storm. And, finally, trash pickup is done by a private entity that also has decisions to make.
“Trash contractors canceled before anyone,” Marcotte said. But not everyone was aware.
“In talking with some residents about trash in particular, they had their trash out the night before we widened the street,” he said. “Some people had their trash out and we [the plows] hit their trash barrels. When they called to complain, we were like, ‘Why did you have your trash out?’”
It was only then that they found out trash pickup was delayed a day, he said.
“We’re trying to really use the website to inform… also put less stress on the staff to get that information out,” Marcotte said. “We want people to go to one place to find the information they need.”
Compounding an already difficult situation were the extremely cold temperatures that followed the weekend storm. With temperatures in the single digits, snow didn’t melt and make additional room for snow cleared off streets, intersections and sidewalks.
“We understand the frustration,” Marcotte said.
