NEW HAVEN -- Most children look forward to snow days, but one city agency in New Haven cringes when there’s snow.
The New Haven Police Department, plain and simple, does not like snow.
“We are still driving, for the most part, regular two wheel drive cars and that becomes one of the biggest challenges - getting officers to emergency calls,” said New Haven police spokesman, Officer David Hartman.
But, they’ve adjusted to that.
“We are going to be staffing officers at the police sub stations and kind of dispatching out of those satellite stations,” added Hartman.
There are 10 substations throughout the city. And, Hartmann said, that if the snow is especially deep, and their vehicles get stuck, it’s not unusual for them to respond to calls on foot.
City officials said several factors are going to make this storm tricky.
“High winds, blizzard conditions, cold temperatures and a lot of snow is going to make it a dangerous, dangerous day,” said Rick Fontana, the city’s Deputy Director of Emergency Operations.
Not in time for this storm, but whenever the next one hits, the city plows will be able to carry out double duty.
“We’ve requested some additional funds so that we can modify some of our plow trucks this year so that we can actually utilize the same fleet of vehicles to pretreat roadways,” said Jeff Pescosolido, Director of New Haven Public Works.
Despite tomorrow’s forecast, there is a silver-lining.
“Tuesday 45 degrees,” said Fontana.
Over 60 trucks, including private contractors, will be plowing the 321 miles of city streets.