BLOOMFIELD, NJ — During the span of a handful of days, the Bloomfield Department of Public Works and Parks faced problems resulting from a dramatic change in temperature, from Arctic freeze to springlike weather.
On Monday of this week, which was Presidents Day, Anthony Nesto, the DPW&P director, was preparing for more snow preceding an increase in the temperature. The snow, and then the warming, was following days of a bitter, deep chill that produced the coldest Valentine’s Day on record in New York City, and possibly a pipe fracture in Bloomfield on Friday, Feb. 12.
“There was a water main break last week at Farmington Avenue and Rutan Place,” Nesto said.
Affected homes were generally without water for a few hours, he said.
“A lot of times we find water main breaks with tremendous temperature shifts, hot to cold, cold to hot,” he said. “In bridges, there are expander bars but I don’t think there are expanders in pipes underground.”
But if there is going to be a water main break, he said, and people are going to have interrupted service, it is better to have this occur when most people were at work. This is what happened.
There was no flooding from the last snowstorm when about 2 feet fell in the area. Nesto said his department cleaned out the catch basin which alleviated this potential problem.
Speaking Monday, Nesto said the forecast was for an inch of snow changing to sleet with freezing rain.
“That’s our concern because the ground is so cold,” he said about the sleet and rain. “Ice is so dangerous. My biggest concern is to make rush-hour safe.”
He anticipated salting the streets and hoped the snowfall would not increase so plowing would be unnecessary. Town Hall was also to be salted.
Bloomfield schools were off until Thursday, which Nesto said was an advantage when the weather was inclement. But bad weather and longer hours on Presidents Day meant overtime pay.
“It’s not great for the township budget,” he said. “But for the whole year, my gut call, I don’t think we spent the same amount of money as last year. But during the blizzard, it was crazy.”
Snow began to fall Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, temperatures had climbed well above freezing.
“A ton of flooding,” Nesto said following a drenching rainfall Tuesday afternoon. “We’ve been removing snow and debris from catch basins. We have branches down and had to call the tree guys out. The rain was worst than the snow.”
His department had salted when it first started to snow. But did not plow.
“We pushed a combination of ice, snow and sleet,” Nesto said. “And then we salted. The ground was so cold that when the moisture hit the road, it froze. But I don’t think anyone was delayed getting in and out of Bloomfield.”
According to Nesto, the DPW&P did not get any complaints about the conditions of township roads.
“We usually do,” he said. “We did a bang-up job.”
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