Public must help keep roads clear during freezing weather

The public needs to play a bigger role clearing roads and footpaths if and when another extended cold spell arrives. This was one of the central messages that emerged from a presentation given by members of the executive of Westmeath County Council to local councillors at Monday evening's council meeting. The cold spell and subsequent thaw stretched the resources of the council to the very limit. According to Director of Services for Roads Barry Kehoe, from November 14 when the temperature started to plummet to December 26/27 when the thaw began, over 20,000 man hours were allocated to keeping Westmeath's main roads open. Mr Kehoe said the council had to prioritise the county's 480km of primary routes and other “impassable†sections of secondary routes. He added that the council's attempts were made even more difficult by its rapidly depleting salt stocks. At the start of November the council had 1,400 tonnes of salt in stock which ordinarily would be enough for 14 complete treatments of the county's primary routes, but with much of the county getting regular snowfalls this quickly diminished as snow needs four times as much salt than ice to be effective. As salt supplies dwindled nationwide, the National Roads Authority (NRA) ordered Westmeath County Council to cut its daily quota to 35 tonnes but the council told the NRA that Westmeath would need 50 tonnes a day to treat the roads. Up until 2009, Westmeath roads were treated, on average, 35 times each winter, but up to the end of January this year the roads had been treated 69 times. One of the big issues that emerged from the seven-week ordeal, Mr Kehoe said, was the need for “greater community involvement on clearing snow from roads and footpaths.†He added that it was “not practical†for the public to expect the council to be able to complete every task unaided. While water consumption went up over 25% from November 22 to December 25 last year due to the high number of homeowners that left taps running in a bid to prevent freezing pipes, serious problems started to emerge when the thaw arrived on St Stephen's Day. In the space of 36 hours there was a 21-degree temperature swing which resulted in almost 3,000 leaks for Westmeath County Council to repair. According to the Director of Services for Water Services, Ray Kenny, 18 leaks occurred on large main networks, over 350 on small service pipes and 2,654 at meter chambers. From December 26 to January 4 over 8,000 man hours were spent repairing leaks and a number of repair teams are still active around the county. In order to deal with the unprecedented number of phonecalls from members of the public an incident room was established. While Westmeath County Council was unable to put a final figure on the funds spent during the cold spell and thaw, it will be seeking to recoup all costs from the Department of the Environment.