HARTFORD- The Connecticut Department of Transportation has 200 contractors in place, fuel at 50 locations, and 850 trucks on the roads at any given time, ready to fight Blizzard 2015.
“We take pride in being prepared,” said DOT Spokesman Kevin Nursick on Monday night.
A statewide travel ban took effect at 9 p.m., but some drivers still hit the roads in the hours immediately leading up to the ban.
Pizza delivery driver, Ali Fariduddin, was one of those drivers. He made deliveries from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. "Hopefully this is going to be my last one,” he said at 8:25 p.m., making his way to Kane Street with a fresh pizza.
His Nissan slid across the roads as he navigated Hartford’s West End for his company, South Whitney Pizza. "By 9 I'm thinking about going home. As you can see it's not going anywhere--the car. I'm not pressing the gas, just a little bit, slowly, slowly,” said Fariduddin.
Meanwhile, DOT crews were hard at work on state roadways after stockpiling materials for months.
The department has 100 heavy front loaders pre-positioned strategically and tree crews on standby. Twelve industrial loader-mounted snow blowers that move 1,500 tons of snow an hour and cut 8-foot paths that are 4-feet deep were also spread out statewide. Those are the same 12 pieces of equipment sent to Buffalo last year.
“This is a very serious storm. This one deserves the hype,” said Nursick.
