By Dean Vaglia
Leader Staff Writer
Even if someone missed Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction, it was not hard to see more winter was on the way. A snowstorm blew through Oxford from Feb. 2-3 laying down around 6-8 inches of snow, closing schools, stopping bus service and painting the town with a hard-packing white mass.
“We had a pretty good snowfall in northern Oakland County,” Steve Freitag, National Weather Service meteorologist in White Lake, said.
The storm began around 7 or 8 a.m. on Feb. 2 with rain turning into snow as temperatures fell. Snowfall was steady throughout the day and slowed up over the night, picking back up on Feb. 3. While the snowfall itself was one issue, warm temperatures on Feb. 1 led to much of the existing snow melting and creating ample conditions for ice. With wind chill, temperatures dropped below 10 degrees.
As the storm coated streets and sidewalks with ice and snow, public works crews were on the case to keep the way clear for people and vehicles.
“We were prepared with a salt bin full of salt and plows were on the trucks,” Don Brantley, Village of Oxford Department of Public Works (DPW) superintendent, said. “We came in [around 2 a.m.,] did some salting and plowing on Wednesday [Feb. 2] … We came back out at about 2:00 [a.m.] on Thursday [Feb. 3] and plowed the parking lots and streets and plowed the sidewalks and salted everything.”
Even though the conditions make getting around difficult and dangerous, Oxford Fire Department Chief Pete Scholz said very few calls came in regarding traffic accidents. According to Scholz, people tend to be more cautious while driving during snow storm conditions.
“Fortunately — knock on wood — we have had nothing,” Scholz said.
Storm conditions were cleared up by Friday, allowing life and business to resume unimpeded.
“It was not as bad as we were anticipating,” Brantley said.