One of the biggest issues facing drivers in the aftermath of major snowstorms is the number of snowbanks that line many of the state's highways.
In many places, especially on older, restricted access roadways, they encroach on to lanes of travel.
Over the past 24 hours, Connecticut Department of Transportation crews have been out on the roads working to dispose of the snow.
“You can keep plowing for subsequent storms and that snow is going to keep encroaching into the roadway," said Kevin Nursick with the Department of Transportation. "That’s a problem. So that’s why we start working really diligently after the storm to get those shoulder sections and elevated areas and those bridges cleared up.”
The state has deployed all 12 of its industrial-sized snow blowers, which drastically cut down on the time it takes to clear a highway.
“Each can move about 1,500 tons of snow each per hour, so instead of using those front loaders to go there and scoop it up into the trucks, we can now use the snow blowers and send the snow right off the highway into the woods," Nursick said.
He added that when the snow piles up along highways or on overpasses, it will be trucked and dumped to sites along exit and entrance ramps where there are no line of sight issues.
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Being able to see on both sides around snow banks is an issue that won't go away any time soon, according to Nursick, and drivers have to take precautions.
“We are not going to have ideal sightlines at these intersections for some amount of time until Mother Nature starts melting some of this stuff,” he said.
