Long, expensive winter
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
2/20/2010

It’s been a long and expensive winter season so far for Cherry Hill and its department of public works employees. This past week, employees were working around the clock since 9 p.m. last Tuesday night to help clear township roadways, representatives reported, and some employees worked almost 40 hours straight.

As the region has seen over 60 inches of snowfall already this season, expenses are starting to mount for many municipalities as townships struggle to keep their communities safe. Last week’s storm threw a new monkey wrench into the mix, Chief of Staff Dan Keashen said, as the incredibly wet and heavy snow downed over 100 trees, large tree limbs, and power lines throughout the township.

As the number of calls grew and the scale of the storm damage became apparent, township officials and emergency responders determined that roadway tree-removal had become the top public safety priority,” he said in a written statement. “Subsequently, a number of DPW plows were re-assigned to removing limbs and tree trunks from the roadway, and accompanying police, fire, and EMT units in responding to service calls.” This past storm may cost the township about $150,000, Keashen estimated. Luckily it was on a weekday so overtime costs were limited, he said. The storm Dec. 19 to Dec. 21 cost the township about $171,000 due to fuel costs, product costs, and overtime, he said. By noon last Thursday, Keashen said the DPW removed more than 47 trees from township roadways. The majority of the roads were cleared by the morning commute as well, he said.

With downed trees and tree limbs come power outages, and several thousand residents reported outages, Keashen said. Luckily, by Thursday morning only about 50 residents still lacked power, PSEG representatives reported.

This storm was a completely different animal than the previous two storms, Keashen said. Because of the downed trees the township had to pull its DPW employees off of plowing duty and onto tree removal duty, he said, so several less-traveled roadways in the township weren’t plowed out until midday on Thursday.

“Our crews out in the field needed to change over to a tree removal operation. They worked actively with the police and fire department to help create access, because access is everything. When we pulled the DPW crews off of the snow plowing, that pushed our plowing completion time frame back,” he said Thursday. “With that said, smaller roadways in town, the roadways with less volume, they were not plowed out until earlier this afternoon. The event turned into a 48-hour event, instead of a 24-hour event.” Muddling the cleanup and stretching township resources thin was a house fire on Roumfort Avenue in the Haddontowne neighborhood of the township Wednesday night, Keashen said. Fire personnel and DPW employees were called out to the house and were able to contain the blaze to the kitchen of the home, he said.

There were no injuries in the fire, Keashen said, but it further thinned employees during the clean-up process.

All told, the fire district reported 64 calls from 3 p.m. Wednesday to 10 a.m. Thursday, and the EMS service reported 18 calls. Keashen said total calls would most likely top about 100 when the final counts come in.

Despite the chaos of the storm, Keashen said the township’s emergency services and emergency plans passed the challenge served its residents well.

“Fire, police and DPW top brass were all coordinating with the county emergency services and were fantastic. Everyone did a great job and the best thing about it was we didn’t take in any real serious injuries in any of the departments,” he said. “We got the roads cleared, the power is back on, and Friday will be business as usual.”