Let it snow, plow drivers say
Mike Stiefel, who owns a snowplowing company in Montville, was so inundated with calls Wednesday, he turned his phone on silent — a far cry from 10 months ago, when he estimated the lackluster winter cost him $15,000 in lost earnings.
"A winter like that put quite a few people out of business," Stiefel, owner of Mike & Sons Snow Plowing LLC, said of last winter's low snowfall.
As of Wednesday evening, over 60 million residents of the East Coast were under winter weather advisories, watches or warnings in anticipation of the major winter storm, stretching nearly 1,000 miles from northern Georgia to New England. The eastern Connecticut shoreline was forecast to get up to 16 inches of snow by Thursday afternoon.
With the possibility of such a major snowstorm this early in the season, snowplowers like Stiefel, who've weathered mild winters in recent years, are preparing for what they hope is the start of a busy season to help pad their coffers.
Stiefel, who's been in business for almost 15 years, said he's tracked storms dating back to 2008, including snowfall totals and the number of snow versus ice storms, and is predicting there will be about 10 to 12 storms this winter, totaling 30 to 40 inches of snow.
He is retired aside from his snowplowing business and said he doesn't depend on the business as his primary source of income. He uses a handful of independent contractors, who also own their own businesses specializing in construction and other expertise, who do plowing on the side in the wintertime for extra income.
"If we get a really good winter, you can make anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 easy," Stiefel said. "It's not a bad little supplement for working a couple months out of the year."
A winter storm warning was in effect for much of the state until 1 p.m. Thursday. In New London, snow began to fall shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday and was expected to continue overnight, with a foot of snow expected by sunrise and accompanied by wind gusts as high as 45 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Snow was expected to continue Thursday morning and early afternoon, with another 2 to 4 inches possible.
The weather service warned drivers that travel would be “difficult to impossible” during the storm. Many towns and cities in the region issued parking bans and schools across the region were closing as a precaution.
"Things don't look good," Gary Lessor, Western Connecticut State University meteorologist, said as he tracked the snowstorm mid-day Wednesday. As snow piles up, wind gusts on the shoreline may reach 50 mph, he said, making for hazardous driving conditions.
"With that much snow and that wind, visibility is going to be close to zero," he said, cautioning drivers to avoid traveling during the storm. "As soon as you can get off the roads, the better."
Keeping workers on the payroll
Some might think that kind of forecast means "white gold" for snowplow drivers, but Brandon Hyde, vice president of Hyde Park Landscape in Norwich, which does both commercial and residential snow removal, said that's not the case.
"It's not as profitable as one would think," he said, as the wear and tear on the trucks and other equipment adds up and many companies pay people overtime to work overnight or in the early hours of the morning.
"I always tell people we're a landscaping company first and we plow in the winter because we have to," Hyde said, noting that snowplowing allows the company to keep staff on during the winter.
"As a small business, our costs don't stop in the winter. We need some type of income. That's why so many landscapers do it," he said.
The company, which has eight plow trucks, tries to balance seasonal contracts, when customers pay a fixed price to have their properties plowed for the season, with "per storm" jobs, Hyde said.
Bill Lillie, co-owner of Sprigs & Twigs in Gales Ferry, said for his company, which primarily does landscape design and maintenance, snowplowing allows "us to keep more people on to feed their families, to keep people on the payroll."
The company, which employs about 20 people, does residential plowing along the shoreline from Old Lyme to Mystic and has about 50 customers. A slow winter doesn't impact the company's bottom line much, Lillie said, but it does impact employees, who know to expect layoffs if there's little to no snow to plow.
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