The third major snowstorm of the year arrived in fits and starts before fully making its appearance late Sunday afternoon. After brief dustings Sunday morning and early afternoon, a nor’easter arrived around 5 pm February 22 and began running its course across the region.

By Tuesday morning the National Weather Service reported Newtown had 12 inches of fresh snow on the ground. Local estimates gave totals closer to 18 inches, depending on where within town the fresh precipitation was measured.

Talk of the storm started quietly last week, but its severity shifted on Friday and Saturday. Predictions quickly went from predictions of some snow to the stronger, major system that impacted the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the country. Newtown’s Emergency Management Team began meeting late Friday afternoon, coordinating with state officials at that time.

Closures of schools and municipal offices for Monday were both announced on Sunday. Schools remained closed on Tuesday, and again Wednesday after an early morning band dropped another three inches of snow across town. Municipal locations had delayed openings both mornings as well.

The Storm

Heavy, wet snow began falling by late Sunday afternoon.

Public Works General Supervisor Anthony Capozziello said PW employees reported to work at 3:30 that afternoon.

“They came in, preset everything, and went to work,” he said Tuesday morning. Town plows continued working until 9 pm, he said. Public Works Director Fred Hurley said just about the full department was working.

“We had two people out, that was it. One person was on vacation and one person was home sick,” he said.

For those working, Capozziello said the biggest challenges were the rate of snowfall and its weight.

“As soon as you plowed it, it would turn to ice,” he said. Even Town trucks had difficulty maneuvering, he added.

“A lot of the trucks got stuck. About six had chains put on, and we did have a lot of breakdowns,” he said, adding that while most issues were minor, “each breakdown takes them off the run for two to three hours.”

Most trucks were back on the road by Tuesday morning, he said. At that time, the focus was on improving sight lines across town, Capozziello said.

“The roads are plowed but we needed to reopen everything and make it easier for drivers to see out there,” he said.

For the February 22-23 storm, the Town used 200 tons of salt and 400 tons of sand, according to Public Works Director Fred Hurley. Hurley also said this week that between December 2 and February 11, the Town used a total 3,600 tons of sand and 4,100 tons of salt.

The brief storm Wednesday morning did not require anyone to arrive for work earlier than normal, according to Capozziello.

“There was no need to call anyone in for that. They all arrived at their regular time and went right out to the roads,” he said.

Travel Ban & Requests To Stay Off Roads

Midday Sunday, Governor Lamont signed an order declaring a state of emergency in Connecticut ahead of the advancing storm. He also signed an emergency order prohibiting all commercial vehicles from traveling on all limited access highways statewide as of 5 pm Sunday.

The emergency order was implemented in coordination with neighboring states, also according to the statement. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency on Sunday. New York Governor Kathy Hochul also declared a state of emergency and partial travel ban and restrictions for her state as well.

Despite Lamont’s order, at least one serious crash in southeast Connecticut occurred around 5:45 Monday after a jack-knifed tractor-trailer truck closed I-95 North in Stonington. A few hours later, another tractor-trailer closed I-95 South in Guilford when it jack-knifed.

Closer to home, a jack-knifed tractor-trailer closed both directions of Route 67 in New Milford shortly after 8 am Monday.

The travel ban was lifted at 4 pm Monday.

Fortunately, local drivers heeded repeated requests from local officials to stay off the roads once the powerful nor’easter arrived. Deputy Emergency Management Director Maureen Will issued the first official request on Saturday afternoon, asking residents to continue preparing ahead of Sunday.

“We know everyone’s out today, we’ve seen it,” Will said February 21. “That’s good. Keep planning, and stay safe.

“Confidence is good this weather event will hit us,” she continued. “Please be off the roads and stay off the roads well before this gets here.”

Similar requests were issued over the weekend by First Selectman Bruce Walczak and Newtown Police Chief David Kullgren.

On Tuesday, Newtown Police Department Lieutenant Scott Smith said during the 48-hour period from noon Sunday until noon Tuesday, “we had only three accidents, only two cars that were parking on the road that we handled, and nine reported disabled motor vehicles — cars or trucks that were stuck in snow or off the road.”

Newtown has an ordinance that prohibits the parking of vehicles on town and state roads from sunset to sunrise between November 15 and March 15. Vehicles can be towed at the expense of their owner if they are found parked along roads during this time of the year.

“All things considered,” Smith continued, “it was not terrible.”

Walczak also said the low number of storm-related crashes was “good news.” He was very pleased, he said, that people “did stay off the roads.”

Capozziello also said residents “were very good” during the storm.

“They were very good about staying off the road. They were very respectful to us,” he said.

As in previous storms, Parks & Recreation personnel also took care of additional locations including schools, fire stations, Newtown Police Department, and many walkways. Smith offered his thanks to those crews.

“It was helpful that we had Parks & Rec clearing our lot, making sure we were able to access the lot and building, and Public Works also helped with getting access everywhere else. It was instrumental in allowing us to keep doing what we do.”

Low Power Outages

Strong winds and gusts were another concern ahead of the weekend storm. Fortunately, Newtown fared well.

At 9 am Monday, Eversource was reporting outages to 34 local customers, or 0.29% of its 11,908 accounts. By 1 pm that number had reduced to 20 and in a late afternoon briefing, First Selectman Bruce Walczak reported the number was “around ten homes without power.

“That number will change as crews work, but they are in town and actively addressing the outages,” he noted.

Statewide, Eversource reported it restored power to more than 24,000 customers by mid-Monday afternoon, with approximately 8,700 customers across the state remaining without power at that time.

On Tuesday, the first selectman was very happy to report there were no power outages in town.

“For Eversource, it’s a combination of trimming in the last couple of years and they have their crews, their trucks parked here in town, so we have crews assigned to the town,” Walczak said. “They really kept it under control and whittled it down to zero outages.”

The first snow of the year occurred over the weekend of January 17-19. Intermittent storms that weekend dropped a total of 9.5 inches by that Monday morning. The second, on January 25, brought another 14-16 inches of snow.

Plenty of that snow — now crusty and dirty — still covered the ground when last weekend’s nor’easter arrived. Punxsutawney Phil was clearly not kidding with his prediction on February 2 that the country would see another six weeks of true winter weather this year.

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.