Crews rush to finish cleanup ahead of yet more snow

Snow crews rushed to finish dealing with the weekend’s snowstorm Monday as another, expected to begin today, loomed.
“Our crews are still working on clearing roads from the last storm,” Virginia Department of Transportation spokesman Lou Hatter said.

He said crews hoped to have made at least one pass over every road in Albemarle County by Monday evening, and would be working to make a second over as many backroads as possible before the snow, expected to start at mid-morning, arrives.

Charlottesville spokesman Ric Barrick said the city is in a similar position.
He added that workers are hoping a minimum of motorists will commute, allowing them to clear snow more easily
Hatter said the new storm likely would make roads slick for everyone, including people with four-wheel drive. He said the extra wheels with power do indeed make snow going easier.
“Where you have a problem is when you decide you’ve got to stop,” he said.

The area is expected to get 5 to 10 inches of snow in this storm, on top of 15.7 inches recorded by the University of Virginia’s McCormick Observatory.
The accumulation total has been revised up an inch from earlier reports, according to UVa’s climatology office. The earlier season total, which left the area 2.5 inches shy of the all-time record, stands, meaning this storm is expected to set a new record for the area.
The last storm was supposed to do that too, but it switched from snow to sleet at a crucial juncture, preventing the sort of snow totals seen by Northern Virginia.
Just the same, a dozen people spent the night Sunday in a shelter at Monticello High School, and 26 holed up at a shelter in Louisa County. There was also a shelter operating in Fluvanna County. Albemarle officials moved the shelter Monday from the high school to the Earlysville Volunteer Fire Company, but by 6:30 p.m., no one had shown up.

As of 8:30 p.m., 21 were still the Louisa County shelter, but power had been restored to Epworth Manor, an apartment complex for seniors. Many of the residents were expected to be transported home from the shelter Monday night, said county spokeswoman Amanda Reidel-bach
“The power companies have been working very hard in restoring power, and that’s our number one driver,” she said.
By Monday night, Dominion Virginia Power was reporting more than 3,500 customers without power in the Charlottesville area, principally in Albemarle, Fluvanna and Louisa counties.
The Central Virginia Electric Cooperative was showing 3,774 outages, many of them in Fluvanna.
Power workers were continuing Monday to repair lines and clear fallen trees.
Statewide, the two utilities had reported about 300,000 without power at the outages’ peak.

Local officials warned residents to look out for food poisoning if their refrigerators have been disabled by power outages.
Hatter also warned that parents should keep children from playing in snow mounds created by plows, as workers may try to move them further back, potentially crushing any children who have tunneled inside.
The inclement weather daycare program at Greer Elementary School will be closed.