Public works crews already bleary-eyed after digging out from Tuesday’s blizzard are making the coffee a little stronger as they ramp up for another storm that promises to dump up to a foot of snow on the region.

“This is what we do,” Monmouth Public Works Director Bruce Balfour said Thursday. “We take it as it comes.”

Meteorologist Mike Kistner, of the National Weather Service in Gray, said the Augusta and Waterville areas should get 6 to 12 inches during a storm that’s expected to begin around daybreak Friday and run through early Saturday.

“It will pick up intensity in the early afternoon to mid-afternoon,” Kistner said. “It should be snowing at a pretty good rate.”

The storm will lighten around midnight and wind down on Saturday, leaving a few lingering snow showers as it pulls off the coast.

The weather service, which has issued a winter storm warning for the entire state, expects temperatures to be in the 20s with wind gusts up to 30 mph and visibility reduced to a quarter-mile or less at times. The temperatures will be warmer than during Tuesday’s storm, which has benefits, Augusta Public Works Director Lesley Jones said.

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“It’s heavier snow, but with warmer temperatures we can apply salt and sand and get down to bare pavement quicker and use less material,” she said.

Kistner said the temperatures still should be cold enough to create a light, fluffy snow, which is small consolation to road crews still dealing with about 2 feet of light, fluffy snow that fell during Tuesday’s blizzard. Crews throughout the region spent Thursday removing snow as quickly as possible to make room for more.

“If we weren’t having another storm, that’s what we’d be doing next week, removing snow,” Hallowell Public Works Foreman Chris Buck said. “Some of our roads are one lane now.”

Gardiner Public Works Director Tony LaPlante had his crew working overnight Wednesday into Thursday clearing snow from Water and Bridge streets.

“That piece is good,” LaPlante said. “There was no room. It took us a few hours longer than normal. It’s just a lot of snow.”

While there has been plenty of snow, sleep has been at a premium. Balfour said his drivers started plowing at 7 a.m. Tuesday, and nearly all spent the next 25 hours trying to keep up with the snow.

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“I had everything that could move snow on the road,” Balfour said. “Everyone did a good job. Now we just have to move this mess to make room for more.”

His crew was back at work Thursday removing snow from the downtown area and pushing back snowbanks with a grader in South Monmouth.

“Our roads are crowded right full,” Balfour said.

LaPlante on Thursday had crews removing snow from the sidewalks. Unable to complete the loop before Friday’s storm, the crews focused on clearing walks in the downtown and near the schools.

Other workers were getting the trucks ready for the next round of snow.

“Everybody’s tired,” LaPlante said. “The guys have worked a lot of hours, and they still have to go home and tend to their own stuff. Their driveways got buried just like everybody else’s.”

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Jones said her crews have spent about 20 hours cleaning sidewalks, focusing on walkways around the rotaries and major arteries. It typically takes about 120 hours to clear all of the city’s sidewalks.

“So we have a ways to go,” Jones said.

Buck’s crews spent Wednesday night cleaning parking areas so people can park off the streets.

“It’s been a long week so far,” Buck said. “It’s been a strain because there are only four of us.”

Forecasters have been watching a storm for Monday that initially promised to be even more significant than Friday’s storm, but Kistner said the consensus now is that the storm will pass to the south. If the storm shifts north, it probably will bring significant snowfall.

“There is still quite a bit of uncertainty,” Kistner said. “Yes, it looks like a miss, but we’re going to keep an eye on it. It’s a close call.”

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Jones said motorists should use extra caution on the narrow streets for the foreseeable future.

“We figure we have two or three weeks of snow hauling in front of us, so some of them are going to be narrow for a while,” she said.

LaPlante said his crew is maintaining a positive attitude despite fatigue, but too many more storms in a row could test their resolve.

“A Monday miss is good news,” he said. “A miss right now would be welcome.”

Craig Crosby — 621-5642

ccrosby@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @CraigCrosby4


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