Dedicated Public Servants

By Bridgette L. Rallo
Snow isn’t a big deal for Norfolk’s hardy commuters. The main roads are almost always passable, so driving into work is just the start of another day at the office. And there’s a reason for that: the state road crew.
With only four full-time snow plows out of the state fleet of 632, the Department of Transportation District 4 Garage in Canaan clears approximately 100 miles of area roads each and every time it snows. Roads maintained by the Canaan garage include Route 44 (known familiarly as “The Big One”) from Winsted to Salisbury, Route 272 from Route 4 in Torrington to the Massachusetts border, Route 41 from Salisbury to the clock tower in Sharon, Route 7 from the Massachusetts border to the Cornwall covered bridge, Routes 112 and 126 to Falls Village and Routes 183, 182 and 182A.
The four local drivers are used to the challenges of long working hours and short rest periods. Richard Garfield, Jeff Towle, Bob Derwitsch and Jeff Coleman man the plows for 17 straight hours, rest for three and then do it all over again until the storm has passed. But even for this stalwart crew, February’s snow totals of more than 16 inches in two weeks took a toll. The snow was wet, heavy and at times produced blizzard-like white outs. The worst period of snowfall came on the weekend of February 26, when the four plows and two subcontractor trucks logged a total of 100 hours on the roads to keep the traffic moving. At the height of the storm, the New Milford state garage sent up an additional two plows, which were dispatched to aid the pair already clearing Routes 44 and 272.
As if that were not enough to handle, General Repair Supervisor Jon Hutchinson was forced to repair the same truck repeatedly because of a problem with the lifting mechanism for the plow. “That poor driver,” Hutchinson said, shaking his head. “He came in and his plow wouldn’t go up. We got it going and he went back out on the road. An hour or so later, he was back again. And the whole time, he was pacing back and forth until we got it working properly. He was just a wreck.”
Don Sage, General Supervisor of the Canaan garage, is extremely proud of his crew. “People don’t realize how hard this kind of work is sometimes,” Sage said. “For example, you can’t ever plan for family holidays. If it snows on Thanksgiving, if it snows on Christmas, if it snows on New Year’s Eve, you’re working. You know it’s part of the job and you signed up for it but still, it’s hard.”