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“I haven't seen a plow in almost 48 hours now. Streets here are a disaster compared to other towns, even main thoroughfares are not clear,” reader Mindy Bowers Mannino wrote Sunday on a The Fairfield Daily Voice Facebook post that asked for reactions to the town’s cleanup work. “In every other town I went to today, even tertiary roads were plowed. I just don't understand it!”
About 35 inches of snow fell on the town of Fairfield during Friday’s storm, the highest total in Fairfield County, according to the National Weather Service. Fairfield has had to bring in more than the traditional snow plows to clear the streets as a result.
“Public Works has made all town roads open for emergency access but due to the historical amount of snow fall, making all roads completely passable requires additional heavy equipment,” town explained on its Facebook page.
Some Fairfield residents were more understanding of the town’s position.
“The Town of Fairfield has done an awesome job! The guy who clears our street 'Murph' has bailed us out so many times I can't count!” Paul Gleason wrote on the town’s Facebook page Monday. “The snow was so deep on Saturday his plow got stuck and our neighbors all pitched in to help him get the truck out and back doing his awesome work.”
Fairfield managed to clear at least one lane on all of its through-streets by Monday afternoon, First Selectman Michael Tetreau said in CodeRed messages to the town. He said he hoped to have two lanes on each street cleared and snow removed from cul-de-sacs by the end of the day Tuesday.
For some Fairfield residents, the progress did not come soon enough. Fairfield still needed to cancel an extra two days of school Monday and Tuesday because the streets were not clear enough for buses to travel safely.
“The Town of Fairfield did a complete disservice to its tax payers this storm. It's now late Sunday evening and the roads are still an absolute mess!” Nancy Haberly wrote in response to our Facebook post Sunday. “I'm fed up with everything being blamed on 'budget cuts' -- our taxes certainly don't get 'cut'. This town is so poorly managed, from the BOE to the DOPW.”
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