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Blizzard Meting
The called Board of Supervisors meeting to review the snow emergency produced a number of useful suggestions.
No one suggested VDOT employees and contract help had not worked very hard and long hours under very trying conditions. Rather they suggested reordering some of VDOT’s priorities so the county can better handle ah emergency.
Piedmont District supervisor Charles K. Estes, in particular, had a series of helpful suggestions. VDOT sets a priority on keeping U.S. 211 and 522 and Route 231 open. Mr. Estes said they should also set a high priority on opening up roads to the fire and rescue Squad buildings, to the schools, to the Sheriff’s Office and to the Medical Center. He said the roads to the Potomac Edison electric substations should be kept open. He also suggested keeping open an east-west route in the southern part of the county in addition to U.S. 211 in the northern part.
Another useful suggestion was using the Washington Fire Hall as a center of operations during an emergency. The lack of any suitable place for road crews to eat and sleep also came up at the meeting. Perhaps the Washington Fire Hall or the schools could serve this purpose.
Washington Fire Chief Roger Roach prepared a detailed analysis of problems revealed by the storm. He suggested some fire and rescue personnel should be at the stations when a snow emergency is imminent to be able to respond faster. Too many people were unable to respond because they could not get out of their driveways.
Another useful suggestion he made is when a road is plowed only one lane wide, extra open areas should be created in spots so vehicles can pass each other when coming from opposite directions.
Mr. Roach further suggested farmer^ with open fields along roads should plant wind breaks to make drifting less likely.
Some of that would indeed be helpful. Too many man hours were spend (clearing out drifts one front end loader bucket at a time. But it would be a shame if all our roadsides were lined with pine trees. A VDOT snowblower assigned just to Rappahannock would be even better.
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