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Supervisor Kathy Burke Gonzalez outlines East Hamptons snow response and a budget modification
Summary
Town Supervisor Kathy Burke Gonzalez told LTV that a 20-person real-time communications thread, twice-daily operational calls and local contractors helped clear roads within 48 hours after a historic February blizzard; she said the town approved a recent budget modification and will seek state reimbursement.
Kathy Burke Gonzalez, Town of East Hampton supervisor, described the towns response to the late-February blizzard during a March 9 interview on LTV, saying rapid internal communications, contractor help and twice-daily operational calls helped clear roads and restore services.
Gonzalez said town leaders held a pre-storm meeting of department heads and set up what she described as "one text thread with 20 people" to share real-time updates across police, highway, buildings and grounds, parks and recreation and the emergency coordinator Bruce Bates. "We were all on there getting information in real time," she said.
Why it matters: The town incurred substantial expenses to clear 30 inches of snow and restore services; Gonzalez said the town completed a budget modification this week to cover storm costs and will ask the state to reimburse municipalities for part of the expense.
Gonzalez recounted the operational cadence during the February blizzard: "we wound up having two calls a day" at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. with the police chief, highway superintendent Steve Lynch, the town administrator and emergency staff to make decisions on closures and equipment staging. She credited local contractors and the highway department for getting "all of the roads cleared within 48 hours so that emergency vehicles could get to people's homes" and said broader clean-up was largely done within about 72 hours.
On equipment and staging, Gonzalez said Highway Superintendent Steve Lynch staged plows and other equipment throughout the town, including Montauk, and livestreamed some of the operations. She said the emergency declaration allowed the town to plow urban renewal roads that are not typically accepted into the highway system. "We also ordered the plowing of urban renewal roads," she said, noting that doing so restored access to mailboxes and dense neighborhoods.
Gonzalez described coordination with PSE&G during outages: crews were staged at the airport but could not safely operate in sustained high winds. She said the town experienced winds over 60 mph and that utility crews generally cannot operate above about 40 mph, which delayed some restorations until conditions improved.
On costs and budgeting, Gonzalez said the town "did a budget modification on Thursday for half $1,000,000" and added that the total expense was "probably gonna be more than that." She said she signed a letter with the Suffolk County Supervisors Association and the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association asking the state to reimburse municipalities for storm-related expenses.
Gonzalez also noted short-term repairs: crews were performing cold patches while frost remains in the ground and planned major paving work once ground frost is gone (she said the highway department does two full paving cycles a year, spring and fall). She said the towns recently completed salt barn helped maintain supplies, though the two storms drew down reserves.
Looking ahead, Gonzalez said a recent postmortem will inform a decision about long-term equipment investments — weighing the cost of additional snow equipment that could sit unused for years against the possibility of more frequent extreme storms. She said no final decisions had been made.
The interview concluded with Gonzalez thanking the host and viewers; she said the town will continue after-action work and apply lessons to future storms.
