For Rye Brook DPW, Mother Nature Has Not Been Kind This Winter

Every time it snows it costs taxpayers a pretty penny for salt, snow removal and overtime.

Some areas get more bang for their buck than others.

For example, the New York City Council faults the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the Sanitation Department, among others, for allegedly being caught with their snow plows down during the recent holiday blizzard.

But in Rye Brook, the Department of Public Works keeps getting high praise for its work during the as well as the .

And that’s because DPW does a lot of advance planning, hard work and follow up in what comes down to “a test of endurance, man against mother nature in the midst of controlled chaos and white outs,” according to Michal Nowak, Rye Brook Director of Public Works.

Nowak and his sidekick, Paul Vinci, DPW general foreman, are like the quarterbacks calling the signals behind Rye Brook’s 12-man snow-clearing team.

And Chris Bradbury, village administrator, is like the general manager calculating the cost of the recent snow removals almost to the penny and pounds of salt needed –around 160 tons of salt for the last snowfall, closer to 200 tons for the holiday blizzard and around $12,000 to $14,000 in overtime, Bradbury said.

But a lot of advance planning and manpower goes into fleshing out those numbers, according to Nowak.

It begins with tracking the weather forecasts, the police scanners, the New York State First Alert System and the Emergency Service System, Nowak said.

Vinci has his men on standby alert and the snow plows and “salters” ready.

When they start depends on road conditions and snow intensity.

But they mount the snow plows on the trucks in advance, and make sure they have enough salt well in advance depending on the weather forecasts.

“The police, in effect, function as our advance scouts tracking the snow intensity once it starts falling,” Nowak said. “They are out checking the road conditions, letting us know where it is really piling up, while we are essentially going over our game plan.”

In the case of the most recent snowfall, Nowak was just walking out of a Village Board meeting around 10 p.m. when the snow flurries started.

When the snow mounted in intensity, he and Vinci decided it was time for their team to hit the road.

The usual DPW work hours are 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. but employees are on standby in case of snow emergencies.

In the latest instance, they were called in at 10:30 p.m. and worked throughout the night on overtime, going on their regular pay schedule once their normal work hours resumed.

“It can get really surreal out there in a snow storm late at night into the early morning hours, the snow falling, the wind howling, the truck lights flashing and the cold seeping into your bones,” said Nowak, a mechanical engineer with a degree from Westchester Community College and a masters degree in public affairs from Mercy College.

“But when it is all over, there is the satisfaction of knowing the job has been well done,” Nowak said, adding that the process begins from the time police start monitoring road conditions and continues to when the salters start spreading salt on the roads before the plow operation begins.

“How bad can it get out there?” he mused in response to a question. “Well on upper Lincoln Avenue behind the Westchester County Airport, the snow drifts were more than eight feet high during the height of the blizzard. And that’s pretty high.”

And with snow predicted for Tuesday night, Rye Brook DPW is getting ready to do it all over again.