Beaver, Butler Counties Hit Hardest By Latest Winter Storm
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The snow came down so fast, road crews had a hard time keeping up.
Bob Hoffman, of Prospect, looked out the window, and said, 'Nope, not today.'"
"I drive a tractor trailer. I didn't even try taking it out, just left it sitting in the driveway. Let them get a chance to plow the road out," said Hoffman. "There's always tomorrow."
At Roxy's Diner on Route 422, Slippery Rock school bus driver Jeanne Gilson was sitting at the next table.
"This is our snow day number six," said Gilson, of Butler. "We'll probably be going to school till the middle of June, but it's tough out there, on the side roads around here. I came from Chicago, and this is really tough."
Most schools in the northern counties were closed as snow depths in Butler County ranged from a foot in the north to eight inches in Mars and Cranberry.
"The drifts were about 12 inches deep and there was no way I could even get out of the driveway," said Doug Gilson, of Butler.
"We like to get out quads out and plow the snow; but this morning, we couldn't push it with the quads. Deep and heavy," said Joe Vivelo, also of Butler.
By midday the road crews had traffic back up to speed and residential streets open, but driveways were coming along slowly.
"I'm looking for someone to drive by and say, 'Hey, I'll plow your driveway,'" said Frank Stanko, of Butler, "but no one's doing that right now."
His neighbor, Gary Shingleton, has the answer.
"Book a flight out of Pittsburgh south to Tampa," he said.
Meanwhile, lots of snow fell in Beaver County.
"We got six to 10 inches of snow here in Beaver County," said one county official.
That meant Beaver County Emergency Management workers were busy Wednesday.
It's been a hard and unrelenting winter, prompting people to dig out.
"I didn't go anywhere," said Joanne Pocorus, of Ambridge. "Just out to use the snow blower on my walkway, and that's about it."
Beaver County has 54 municipalities, and some of them are running dangerously low on salt.
New Brighton is one of them.
"We normally use 550 tons of salt for the entire season. We have used 750 tons to date," said New Brighton Borough Manager Larry Morley. "I have estimated that I need 275 tons additional to make it through the middle of March. Right now, I only have 175 tons on hand. So, I'm going to come up short."
But Morley has a backup plan.
"Last night, we did not do normal salting," he said. "We only salted hills and intersections, and if you drive through the town, you do not see streets quite as clear as you normally would, especially the flat areas. We are conserving our salt, and trying to make it last."
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