Despite over 15 inches of snow that fell over a span of two days on February 16 and 17 and two water main breaks, both of which occurred on Marcellus Road, the Village of Mineola survived the Blizzard of 2003 without much incident.

According to Mayor John P. Colbert, the village did just fine as far as plowing the roads, although the village did issue over 400 parking tickets for cars that were left out on the street during the storm.

As has been the case, the village's department of public works hit the streets early and often in an attempt to keep the street clear. Mayor Colbert declared a state of emergency at 2 a.m. on Feb. 17, but, by that time, the village workers were in the midst of plowing.

The leaders of the DPW attack on the snow, Superintendent of Public Works Tom Rini reported for duty at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 16, and Assistant Superintendent of Public Works Ron Ciesinski reported at 9 p.m.

At 8 p.m., village workers began salting emergency streets such as those around the fire department headquarters on Elm and Washington and the Mineola Volunteer Ambulance Corps headquarters on Washington. Plowing began at 9:30 p.m.

The village used a total of 12 pieces of equipment with two vehicles working as a team. The process included initially starting with salt and then continuing to plow the village roads throughout the night, not giving the snow a chance to accumulate. "If you don't do that, it's going to build up," said Ciesinski.

In addition to 12 village-owned vehicles, the village used an outside contractor consisting of one vehicle to help out. The village workers plowed all night, taking intermittent breaks.

As mayor Colbert points out, the plowing of the streets for this blizzard was an in-house project, meaning the village did not award outside contracts to do the job, except for one other vehicle. "In [the storm of] 1996, I think we had six, seven or eight contractors in here. We did this [blizzard of 2003] in-house, which saves us a lot of money," he said.

At 6 a.m. on Monday morning, village labors began to remove the snow from sidewalks in front of the municipal buildings. Ciesinski estimates that the workers had the village streets secured by 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Then at 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, village workers began cleanup, using pickup trucks with plows to clean intersections on corners. Then around midnight on February 18, village workers salted the roads again to prevent any icy conditions.

Ciesinski estimates that village workers worked an average of 30 hours of the snow storm. Mayor Colbert said the storm did not set the village back financially. "I haven't gotten an actual cost but there are monies for this," he said.

Fortunately, the village came out of the Blizzard of 2003 with no major incidences. Ciesinski said everything worked out fine concerning the plowing except for the parked vehicles on village streets that tend to make it more difficult for village vehicles to plow.

"It's just so difficult to plow and then when the cars get plowed in, the snow ends up as a wall in front of somebody else's house and the other part of the snow is back into the street. Our concern is for emergency vehicles being able to get in and out through the streets of the village," Colbert said.

According to the village's snow ordinance, after two inches of snow falls, cars must be taken off the streets. The mayor said the village had received some complaints concerning cars that had received tickets, but very few complaints about the snow removal.