Borough of Point Pleasant –
Mayor Sabosik is proud to share a recap of the recent blizzard response and to recognize the extraordinary efforts of our municipal employees and volunteers.
According to Mayor Sabosik, “While this blizzard didn’t break the record, it was still the biggest snow storm we’ve experienced in quite some time. Our town got 18” of snow, higher or lower in some areas if you consider snow drifts due to the 50mph winds that lashed our community. The snow started around 5:30PM Sunday and didn’t stop until Monday afternoon around 3PM. Our plows hit the road at 7PM Sunday with 18 trucks on the road and didn’t stop until 8:30PM Monday night. By noon on Monday, every municipal owned street in the Borough received multiple passes with the plows as snow continued to fall. Crews continued to work and around 3PM when the snow stopped accumulating, they prepared for a final tour covering EVERY section of town over again. The final plow came back to the public works yard at 8:30PM Monday night. That’s 25.5 hours of straight plowing covering approximately 55 miles of municipal owned roads. After plowing concluded, the rest of the night trucks were out salting until 12:30AM Tuesday morning when the final truck was able to go home. Today and the rest of the week will include additional salting where necessary and touching up trouble areas like street corners, widening intersections, making sure all fire hydrants are visible and finishing sidewalks on municipal properties now that the streets are clear. Our Public Works Department did an outstanding job. We don’t contract out, they are all our own employees and they take great pride in their work. All our roads were passable by the afternoon and by the time they finished with their second tour, late Monday night, all our municipal roads were down to black top. There are still some downed power lines along with cable and phone lines, but they have been marked out and are awaiting the proper companies to make the appropriate repairs.”
Council President Joe Veni added that “It wasn’t just our public works department that handled this storm. Our Office of Emergency Management also did an outstanding job keeping residents updated and informed of power outages, snow totals and running the warming center. Their Facebook and Instagram pages are where Borough residents go for up to date storm info in real time and we ask residents who aren’t following them on social media to do so. Also, our Police Department sent out NIXLE alerts throughout the storm keeping residents informed. Our Fire Department and First Aid squad also were mobilized and ready to assist any and all residents in need.”
Borough Administrator Frank Pannucci concluded by stating that “This was not an average snow storm. This was a full-on blizzard that caused a lot of havoc in towns across New Jersey, but despite not seeing a storm like this in close to ten years, our forces handled it with grace and professionalism as quickly as humanly possible.”
