{"id":4778,"date":"2018-01-15T02:51:19","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T07:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=4778"},"modified":"2018-01-15T02:51:19","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T07:51:19","slug":"snowstorm-cost-county-taxpayers-725k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2018\/01\/snowstorm-cost-county-taxpayers-725k\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowstorm Cost County Taxpayers $725K"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ocean<\/a>

Ocean County Road Department snow plows. (Photo: OCRD)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Jan. 4 snowstorm dropped 16 inches of snow \u2013 along with a hefty bill for Ocean County taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The storm proved difficult to manage due to frigid temperatures that stalled trucks, to 50 m.p.h. winds that left snow flying across Barnegat Bay and piling up on the county\u2019s two barrier islands. In all, the storm cost an estimated $725,000 in supplies, equipment and overtime. Freeholder Director Gerry Little said\u00a0the greatest share of the cost estimates \u2013 $675,000 \u2013 was in the Road Department. Included in that total was more than $337,000 for materials, $191,000 for overtime and $35,000 for subcontractors.<\/p>\n

Ocean County operates the largest county road network in the state, with 630 total miles to plow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was our first blizzard in several years, plus the frigid temperatures and high winds made the cleanup especially difficult,\u201d Little said.<\/p>\n

Prior to the storm, the county had on hand 25,000 tons of salt and 10,000 gallons of liquid calcium. More than 3,700 tons of salt was used during the storm along with 4,150 gallons of liquid calcium.<\/p>\n

Little noted that the one could drive to Syracuse, N.Y. and back, and still not have traveled as far as every county road put together.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t realize how tough it is on trucks to plow,\u201d said Freeholder John Bartlett. \u201cYou\u2019ve got clutches, engines, the undercarriage of the plow itself, and it breaks down like there\u2019s no tomorrow. We\u2019ve got to keep all that stuff running.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a major snowstorm Ocean County, at any given time, has roughly 200 pieces of equipment on the county roads in addition to the private contractors that are called in to assist with salting and plowing operations.\u00a0The county also lent a helping hand to residents who found themselves stranded in their vehicles and also to essential services workers like doctors and nurses who had to get to work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Jan. 4 snowstorm dropped 16 inches of snow \u2013 along with a hefty bill for Ocean County taxpayers. The storm proved difficult to manage due to frigid temperatures that stalled trucks, to 50 m.p.h. winds that left snow flying across Barnegat Bay and piling up on the county\u2019s two barrier islands. In all, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-ocean-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ocrd_snow.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-1f4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}