Uniontown, townships battle mountains of snow
The state of emergency, declared in the Uniontown Sunday night by Mayor James Sileo, is expected to be lifted this afternoon. However, Sileo and supervisors from North and South Union townships, said their road crews are still contending with snow-covered roads and are asking drivers not to travel any more than they have to.
Sileo said that two out of city’s four trucks were down Monday with broken axles.
He also said that he only has five city workers to take care of the snow.
“These poor guys are exhausted,” said the mayor. “They’re out doing the best they can but people are going to have to be patient with them. I also have the sewage guys out with their highlifts helping to clear the snow from the streets.”
Sileo said, “This is really going to hurt my budget but what are you going to do? We have to get the snow off the streets.”
Sileo said although employees were prepared for the snow no one thought that the city would actually get as hard as it did.
“This is the worst I’ve seen in eight to 10 years,” Sileo said. “I guess my main message to residents would be if you don’t have to be out in this don’t leave you houses,” said Sileo. “The side streets are still a mess because we have been concentrating on the main roads. Please give us a chance to get the side streets cleared before you drive on them.”
Sileo said another thing residents have been doing, which is against the law, is throwing snow from their driveways and sidewalks back onto the streets.
“I told the police to cite anyone they see throwing the snow back onto the street,” Sileo said. “There’s a $300 fine for anybody who gets caught doing this. We don’t need to cause another hazardous condition by putting the snow back on the streets.”
South Union Township Supervisor Chairman Bob Schiffbauer agreed with Sileo that the last time he saw this much snow was eight to 10 years ago.
“I think we spoiled our residents in the years past because we have had enough salt to keep the roads clear,” said Schiffbauer. “However, this year is a completely different story.”
Schiffbauer said the township, which has about 78 miles of roadway, is low on salt so they are “rationing” it out.
“We’re on the top of the list to get salt, but that’s not helping us right now,” Schiffbauer said. “Normally, we go through 300 to 400 tons a year, but this year we’ve gone through 2,500 to 2,800 tons of salt.”
Schiffbauer said the township rented extra equipment when officials heard the weather forecast to help with the snow removal.
“We rented an extra truck and acquired the services of four backhoes and a front-end loader,” Schiffbauer said. “I can’t tell you how much that really helped out because without the extra help we would not have been able to accomplish what we have in the last 24 hours.”
Schiffbauer said all the main roads are open in the township and the road crews are working on the side roads. He also said that he hopes that that the warm weather stays around for a while.
“If the temperatures would have dropped, we would have been in real trouble because the little bit of salt that we have left would not have done much good,” Schiffbauer said.
Schiffbauer said he’s hoping to have the majority of the snow cleared off the main roads by this afternoon but he said that the sheer volume of the snow has caused most of the problems.
“We don’t have anywhere to put it,” said Schiffbauer. “Tuesday we intend to widen the roads but we don’t have the equipment to truck the snow away like a lot of the big townships and cities across the state.”
North Union Township supervisor John Mateosky said his crews are having the same problems on their 86 miles of roadway.
“It’s still a little bit treacherous out there,” Mateosky said. “Up around the mountains, we have 10- to 12-foot snow drifts. This has been a bad, bad snow. It’s the worst snow that I can remember in 25 years.
Both Schiffbauer and Mateosky said that they and their crews have only had about two hours sleep over the past 24 hours.