State Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson defended the state's response to what he termed a "hundred-year storm." Watch video
TRENTON — It looked like a winter blunderland.
That was the assessment by the Assembly Transportation Committee chairman about New Jersey’s response to the day-after-Christmas blizzard.
Assembly Committee chair John Wisniewski said snow-removal efforts were plagued by a lack of communication between the governor and state transportation officials, and between state transportation officials and the buried-under towns.
"If I had to give it a letter grade, I would say we got a C-minus — below average," Wisniewski, a Democratic assemblyman from Middlesex County, said today at a committee hearing to investigate the state’s handling of the monster Dec. 26 snowstorm that dumped up to 32 inches on parts of New Jersey.
"There should have been better, more consistent coordination between the state government and municipalities and counties."
State Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson defended the state’s response to what he termed a "hundred-year storm."
"Our personnel did an outstanding job, given the nightmarish conditions that Mother Nature handed us," he said.
Still, he said, the DOT is making changes to improve performance during future events:
— Weather and road conditions will be reported by DOT personnel every two hours.
— More than 100 contractors will be added to fight storms.
— Coordination has been increased with New Jersey State Police.
— New radios will be installed in all trucks to improve communication.
Both the legislators and transportation officials said the purpose of today’s session was to learn from the blizzard experience. But the hearing conjured up vivid images from the storm four weeks ago: Buses stuck on the Garden State Parkway for nearly 12 hours, plow trucks paralyzed on Route 18 in Monmouth County and Interstate 280 in Essex County, the six-foot-tall snowdrifts and the debate about whether Gov. Chris Christie should have altered his family vacation to Disney World.
Simpson said snow removal crews were hampered by a combination of roads being crowded due to day-after Christmas shopping and people returning home from the holidays, 50 mph wind gusts and three inches of snowfall per hour — twice the 1.5 inches of snow per hour that crews typically can handle.
"The wind was blowing so fiercely that literally right after a plow did a pass, the snow was blown back onto the travel lanes," Simpson said. "When we think of snow, we think of it falling vertically. But we had more than that to contend with. The wind created snow blowing horizontally, sweeping across the roadways like a tsunami."
Simpson said the state has already spent close to $25 million for snow removal, leaving it over budget with five months left in the fiscal year that ends June 30.
The hearing also provided an insider’s look into snow removal: Roads aren’t considered plowable until the snow reaches 2 inches, and the bane of transportation officials in the state is Route 280 and its steep slopes.
Simpson said engineers once proposed wiring the pavement on 280 with electrical coils to keep it from freezing, but that suggestion was later deemed impractical. He also noted that while the type of pavement used on Route 280 reduces noise, it was recently discovered that the crevices in that kind of payment reduce the effectiveness of road salt — "something we are looking into," Simpson said.
Late on Dec. 26, Simpson said, he drove to Route 280 westbound in Orange and found wind that could knock down humans, white-out conditions and stranded cars and 18-wheelers.
It was along this stretch, at the height of the storm, where Rosemary Hicks, a West Orange resident, abandoned her car and walked a half mile to the East Orange police station, where she collapsed and could not be revived.
But it was Monmouth County that became the epicenter of the blizzard, from Freehold northeast to Long Branch and south to Point Pleasant.
"To give a picture of the challenges presented by this blizzard, tow trucks became mired in the snow and needed other tow trucks to free them," Simpson said during a 33-minute speech in which he quoted Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes and American Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
"Even front-end loaders got stuck. On Route 18, nine (Department of Transportation) snowplows became trapped and needed to be dug out by front-end loaders. Because of the blinding snow, four DOT plows had run off the road and were stuck in ditches."