A cold snap brought freezing temperatures and about an inch of snow to the region this weekend.
And while the cold weather may have been a surprise to some, towns start preparing for snow long before it starts to fly.
Hancock Highway Foreman Jeff Wright said the department starts preparing for winter weather in the summer by stocking its sand and salt piles and making sure the trucks are mechanically sound.
This year, he said, the trucks are in good working condition, and the sand has been screened and is ready to be spread across the roads.
“Some years you feel more prepared than others, but we are fortunate this year because we feel like we’re ready to go,” Wright said.
He said there are five employees who are responsible for clearing the town’s roads – four that are tasked with clearing the town’s highways and one who plows out municipal buildings. Each is assigned a specific route. During a lighter snow or sleet event, only part of the crew is dispatched, but when snow starts to fall, all hands are on deck.
The logistics have been ironed out in time for cold weather, but things can still go wrong.
“You can prepare and prepare and prepare and something still can go wrong when you’re out there,” Wright said, noting that things like mechanical failures are inevitable.
Though the first snow of the season put little on the ground, it was enough to bring on icy conditions and trouble drivers, according to Peterborough Police Chief Scott Guinard.
“We started getting calls last night around 9:30 p.m.,” said Guinard on Monday. “As usual, Temple Mountain was icing up, and cars were sliding off both sides of the road.”
Temple Mountain on Route 202 is a state-maintained road, said Guinard, and the town notified the state Department of Transportation immediately. It took about an hour and a half for state road crews to respond and get drivers back on their way.
There were several accidents on state roads Sunday night and during the early part of the Monday commute, said Guinard.
At 10:15 p.m. on Sunday, a 2002 Toyota pickup driven by Asra Zahn, 35, of Lyndeborough, lost control on Route 202 near Old Mountain Road, sliding into the guardrail. Zahn was able to get back on the road with assistance from a passerby and a Peterborough police officer, and was able to continue without injury and only minor damage to the vehicle.
At 11 p.m., also on Route 202, near the Jaffrey town line, Cori Laskey, 27, of Jaffrey, slid off the road in a 2008 Toyota pickup due to the icy conditions. Laskey was not injured, but the vehicle’s airbags deployed and it had to be towed from the scene.
Accidents continued as icy conditions persisted on Monday morning, starting with a roll-over accident at about 5 a.m. on Route 136 in the area of Hancock Road, when a 2006 Hyundai driven by Jared Barnhard, 28, of Bennington, hit an icy patch while crossing the bridge, crossing into the northbound lane and hitting the embankment, causing the car to roll. Barnhard was not injured, but his vehicle was towed from the scene.
At about 6:40 a.m., a 2005 Ford pickup F150 truck belonging to the school district was involved in an accident when its driver, Daniel Allen, 17, of Hancock, a district employee, slid off the road and crashed into a tree, causing front-end damage to the truck. Allen was not injured. The truck was towed from the scene.
“All of these accidents happened on state roads,” said Guinard. “The roads were in extremely poor condition from last night right through to this morning, with packed snow and ice. It always takes two or three storms to re-educate people every year.”
In Lyndeborough, there were two snow-related accidents, according to Chief Rance Deware, one single-car accident and one vehicle off the road. Both incidents occurred on Monday morning.
Temple also had several accidents in the late hours of Sunday night. At about 10:08 p.m., Kacie Post, 23, of Chester, was involved in an accident on Route 101 at Powers Road. Her vehicle was heavily damaged, but she was not injured.
At 10:55 p.m., Abigail Roark, 19, of Wilton, and Cy-Randy Arsenault, 19, of Wilton were involved in a two-car accident on Route 101. Their vehicles sustained moderate damage, and Roark’s vehicle had to be towed from the scene, but neither driver was injured.
Just before midnight, a vehicle driven by Michael Sisk, 21, of Jaffrey, went off the road and struck a utility pole, causing heavy damage to the vehicle, which had to be towed. Sisk was uninjured.
The state highway department was called to the west side of mountain on Route 124 late Sunday night, after police had received reports of vehicles stuck on the road. There was no damage to any of the vehicles, and the state highway department came by to salt and sand the road.
At 7:27 a.m., Jaffrey police responded to Squantum Road near Prescott Road, after a Toyota Corolla driven by Nicholas Hackey, 21, of Jaffrey, and a 2008 Nissan Altima, driven by Robert Jones, 25, of Jaffrey, collided head-on. Air bags deployed and both cars were towed from the scene, but no injuries were reported.