HAMBURG, N.Y. — In various communities around Western New York where they really got hammered with high accumulations of snow state, county, and local highway crews may still be very busy for a bit trying to chop down some of the very high mounds of snow at intersections.
They are aware that there are some spots where those snow mounds can really hamper the visibility of drivers pulling out onto a main road from a side street or driveway of a home or business.
So now the payloaders and high lifts are at it again picking the snow to load it into the dump trucks to get rid of it elsewhere.
2 on Your Side saw a state crew on Camp Road and Hamburg town officials explained why this is very important. Emergency Services Director Sean Crotty told us.
"The phase of the snow removal where we are right now is with all the snow at the intersections of the roadways. It's very hard to see pulling out so we have crews with the high lifts trying to remove the snow from those intersections so that people can see pulling out onto the main roadways."
This is being done as the town of Hamburg is technically still in a state of emergency for snowstorm response and they are asking all drivers to slow down and be cautious until those intersections are cleared.
Crotty notes that some people in some private developments in the Southtowns may be upset that they have not been totally plowed out.
While we are not making excuses for them, some of the heavy snow that fell cannot easily be cleared by plows on pickup trucks which are typically used by such developments
Some smaller plow operators are having mechanical issues with their equipment like hydraulic hoses blowing out and parts breaking.
That's why there are so many of those high lifts or payloaders which have been pressed into service to break up and lift the snow to dump it elsewhere or in the waiting dump trucks carting it off.
And again in some developments that are typically just plowed with hired crews, they are not able to move it unless they have the expensive high lifts or even smaller bobcats but people complain to the town.
"With the private subdivisions and mobile home parks that are private, There's some homeowners' associations that are responsible for snow removal. And we don't want to be on our heels. We want to be proactive with it but we can't go in and clear the snow out as they are obligated to do," Crotty says.
Crotty added that the town will still help to provide emergency access to such properties and they/ "have contingency plans on getting in there in the event there was a medical emergency and a need for police or fire."
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