Freezing rain left sidewalks, cars and city streets covered in ice Tuesday. Conditions varied across the city and changed rapidly.
“Not a wonderland,” said Joseph Rufo, who was staying in Norwich with his girlfriend. “I didn’t think it was that bad and then I slipped all over the place.”
The sidewalk outside of Rufo’s house looked like an ice-skating rink. He struggled to walk to get his mail.
Several blocks away, Mark McKeever spent the morning and afternoon spreading salt outside of his house.
“For safety,” said McKeever. “Did it last night, did it this morning, doing it now.”
The team at Norwich Public Works said they are in a similar rhythm. The 20 plus crews started prepping for the storm Monday night and have been on the roads ever since, trying to keep up with the freezing rain.
"They finish a route and they start right back at the beginning and start scraping again,” said Superintendent Franz Redanz.
Local
Redanz said that freezing rain is the most difficult element for his team to work in.
“It builds back up, refreezes,” said Redanz. “It’s problematic.”
There were at least three weather-related crashes in Norwich on Tuesday. No one was seriously injured. One of the cars was brought to Kleeman’s Service Center.
“We've gotten calls for slide-outs, people sliding off the road, icy conditions and accidents,” said Fawn Kleeman, a manager at the service center. “A lot of people think they are just wet and there are still a lot of icy patches out there."
Redanz said that his team will continue to monitor the conditions. Depending on how low the temperatures drop, Norwich Public Works might send more crews out through the night.
