By Mason Horodyski SYRACUSE, N.Y (NCC News)- Syracuse Department of Public Works employees will be working through the night until April 15th as they finish their winter work schedule. About 40 to 50 workers will be out every night from 10 p.m to 6:30 a.m clearing out any debris in streets and the last of any snowbanks in the Syracuse area. Following their deadline next Monday, the department will shift its focus into more summer-centric tasks. Kevin Hunter, head of the Bureau of Street Repair, said that three departments will take care of these roles.
“Our three departments combine our street repair, sewers, and street cleaning.” says Hunter. “We’ll have a full staff on street repair, which is our paving operation for potholes. The sewer department, [will] go and do what they do in sewers, and street cleaning will clean up the brush.”
While it was an expectedly brutal winter in Syracuse this year, the Department of Public Works is used to dealing with heavy snow. Just last year, Syracuse was awarded the “Golden Snowball” award for being the snowiest city in America. While the city failed to reclaim that titles this year, Ann Fordock, the Deputy Commissioner of Public Works, is happy that workers will no have to deal with harsh weather conditions for another year.
Unless some random storm hits between now and the next two week,” she said, “which we hope there will not be, we will lose [the Golden Snowball].
However, Fordock’s staff will still be hard at work once the weather starts to heat up. Lucky for them, though, the community has also been willing to do their part.
“They go out and they pick up all of the leaves, and trees, and branches that people have already put out.” said Fordock. “Because we’ve had a couple good weekends, people have started taking care of their yards.”
