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For Ridgefield’s Highway Department the lack of snow isn't a good or bad thing, but they’re keeping their guard up. Weather is subject to change at any given time said Pete Hill, the director of Public Services.
“This time of year temperatures should be a lot colder than they are,” Hill said. “Right now we’re not seeing that.”
Trying to predict what the snow fall will be and how much the department will spend on plowing is something best left to April, Hill said. “We just take it day by day.”
When snow does come. Hill says they’re ready. Each truck the town owns is capable of fitting a plow to its front, and Hill says that it takes between 10 to 15 minutes to attach the plow.
“We don’t start plowing roads until we get at least 2 inches of snow, before that it’s salting,” Hill said. And everyone in the department plows, including Hill in order to cover the almost 170 miles of town road. During storms, they do contract out to local companies in order to keep the roads cleared.
The nor’easter at the beginning of November dumped about 10 inches of snow on to Ridgefield’s roads Hill said, and he hopes that will be the last of the snow.
Not having snow fall this year would be more of an issue for local landscaping businesses who need the plowing to keep the business going through the winter.
“If there is snow you’ve got all your bills paid and something start the spring off with,” said Cindy Moore the owner of Moore Lawn Maintenance. During warmer winters she said that she and other small businesses live by the weather apps on their phones so that they can keep in the know about the storms coming.
It can be too hard to prepare for storms, Moore said, because forecasts can change so quickly and buying the salt is expensive. If snow is predicted for the weekend, she said they probably won’t start preparing until Friday. “We just go day by day,” she said.
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