From DPW Director Brutus Cantoreggi, via Councilor Morrongiello:
Happy New Year,
Just want to give you all an update on the snow and ice removal operations.
We pretreated the Town yesterday, the 31st, with brine (the squiggly lines stuff).
DPW personnel reported to work this morning at 1AM because of an anticipated snow event.
It was anticipated that we would get less than two inches as reported by our weather folks and local media stations.
Of 35 employees, all folks reported to work unless they had scheduled a day off.
Pretty much started snowing around 2pm, so we commenced treating the whole town at that time.
Extremely cold, temp was 18 degrees.
At 7AM the Town looked great, there was about 1.5 inches of snow on the ground.
Around 8AM, a "snow squall" hit the town. Snow was very heavy and dropped another 2 inches within an hour.
After driving the Town, the decision was made to call the contractors in.
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| downtown Franklin in snow, Jan 1, 2026 |
I was hoping not to call the contractors to save funds, and not have to plow and just use salt, but due to the amount of snow, very low temperatures (less than 32) predicted as a "high temperature" throughout the weekend, and not wanting too much snow and ice on the the roads causing slippery conditions.
We called the contractors at 9AM.
Of the 60 pieces of contractor equipment we have on contract (we would like to have around 80), only were able to get around 40. The contractors some of their staff away for holidays also
The number of vehicles parked on the roads continues to truly affect our response rate and keep us working longer because we have to go back and clean up those areas when the vehicles are finally moved.
As of right now, the Town is looking pretty good. We started plowing sidewalks about an hour ago. We have a lot of bare wet pavement out there (the low temp salt is working well).
We have used a lot of salt over the last couple of storms, we are replenishing our salt supply now, but we do have enough.
On a side note, mutual aid was done, we were good neighbor and supplied Milford with some salt as they ran out. They were very appreciative, and they will reimburse us for the salt next week!
Besides the cold, the long range weather forecast looks pretty good.
I am sure there will be some icy spots tonight and some drifting snow.
Please remember, that it is not our goal to have all side streets completely bare, there may be some snow on the side streets but it will be less than an inch. Folks just need to slow down a bit in the subdivisions
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