BRUNSWICK — The latest winter storm that hit the Midcoast Sunday night into Monday brought more wet snow, canceling area schools once more and sending road crews and plows to the streets yet again.
The Brunswick area had 6 inches of snow by 9 a.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
“We’ve had more events than normal,” said Topsham Public Works Director Dennis Cox. “We’ve had over 25 significant events,” meaning storms where he’s had to call out more than four people to take care of 100 miles of road.
That’s not counting sending crews out to treat roads where daytime melting has frozen again. Many storms have hit over the weekend and on holidays.
“It’s been a tough winter because it seems like every storm comes with rain and/or ice so that’s eating up the product,” he said.
The winter sand supply has gone over budget and the salt budget will be close. Cox said crews have also been out at least twice as much as normal treating an extra slippery 14 miles of sidewalk.
“The type of winter we’ve had because of the rain and freeze, roads have been damaged a lot,” Cox added, “and it’s not just in Topsham. That moisture gets into the cracks, freezes, expands and breaks,” creating potholes. That could prompt Topsham selectmen to post roads Thursday night to keep heavy trucks off several roads this spring to protect them against damage now that frost is starting to move around in the ground.
The winter also has school districts keeping an eye on the snow days they are racking up. School Administrative District 75 last year used all of its five allotted days for storm cancellation in the fall after a wind storm caused major damage in the four member towns. Monday’s snow day was the district’s sixth and moved the last day of school at June 21.
Interim Superintendent Peg Armstrong said school officials want to avoid having school the last week of June. If there is another snow day, a May 28 professional development day will become a full student day and then if needed, five late start Wednesdays can be converted to full student days.
Armstrong said the district is looking at other contingency plans if more school cancellations are needed.
Brunswick School Department also had its sixth snow day Monday. Superintendent Paul Perzanoski said the department has 176 student days on its calendar this school year, but the state only requires 175. The last two years the school board has waived the extra day and Perzanoski expects that will happen again this year.
Should more snow days be in store, “We’re going to look at that too in the next week or two,” he said. “The issue is how much do you disrupt versus put another day at the end of the year.”
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