Community Corner

Town Highway Department Still Working to Clear Roads

Highway Superintendent said drivers should have clear roads on afternoon commute home.

workers were out clearing the roads again at 4 on Monday morning, according to Highway Superintendent Scott King.

King said their winter storm work began on Sunday morning at 5:30, when workers started salting the roads. They came back in the afternoon at 2 to plow and kept on plowing until 10 p.m. They were back on the roads again at 4 a.m.

While crews went home, one worker was posted with a truck at the Montauk Fire Department and another at the East Hampton Fire Department to respond with ambulances as needed. For one call in Montauk on Sunday, the road had to be cleared to let the ambulance through, King said. "We'll go all the way to Southampton with them and back if needed," he added.

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"You know what the real story here was? The wind," King said on Monday morning. The National Weather Service clocked the higheset wind gusts in Montauk at up to 51 m.p.h., but trees and wires came down all over East Hampton Town. "We had dozens of trees come down across the roadways. We had to send plows to just move trees off the roads," King said.

He said Montauk seemed to get hit the hardest from the wind.

Find out what's happening in East Hamptonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

King said his department would probably work on Monday until about 3:30 p.m. "When everybody goes home this afternoon, they'll be driving on pavement."

Aside from a few truck breakdowns, King said the operation went smoothly. "It wasn't as much as they said, which is good. This was our first run of the season. Last season, the first snow, we got, what 26 inches, and then had snow on the ground for a month? I'd say this didn't go too bad."


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