By Renee Worthing
Register Reporter
  Another winter storm cancelled Sanford and Acton schools, closed state offices and spurred parking bans for the 15th time this season.
   The storm also pushed the town further over budget for road salt deliveries and overtime salaries for public works and sanitation crews.
   Residents woke up Feb. 13 to several inches of heavy wet snow, which soon changed to ice, encasing trees and twigs. Branches, heavy with ice and snow, succumbed to the weight and fell to the ground, shattering the thin ice like crystal.
   Icy conditions gave way to heavy rain, causing minor street flooding throughout Sanford and Springvale, but many residents were out early shoveling snow before it became too heavy to move and Sanford Public Works crews were called out around 1 a.m. Feb. 13 to begin plowing and treating roads.
   A full crew of 18, including workers from the transfer station, were out in force, Sanford Public Works employee Eugene Alley said.
   Public works employee Jamie Goodwin said the snow, followed by ice and rain resulted in widespread street flooding.
   Many street drains were covered by snow banks and had to be plowed clear before public works road crews could use rakes and shovels to hold back the slush while the water rushed down the drains.
   Goodwin stood on the running board of his public works truck as he held back the slush from a drain with a shovel.
   As Goodwin and Alley were trying to clear drains on Main Street in front of Miller Ford, some drivers slowly crept through the flood waters while others seemed to take great joy in making big splashes as they charged through the water, sending up huge sprays of slushy water.
   Goodwin said he was concerned about the roads icing over if the temperatures dropped during the night.
   “We are completely out of salt except for a little left on a few trucks,” Alley said.
   He said the town hoped to receive a shipment of a “couple hundred tons” of road salt that day, but said if the roads iced over during the night, the shipment may not be enough.
   “We go through about 250 to 350 tons of salt per storm,” he said.
   Sanford Public Works Director Charles Andreson said a couple of loads of salt were delivered Feb. 13, but it was used that night and two more loads of salt delivered on Valentine’s Day were already used, too.
   He said the shortage of salt forced road crews to purposely leave snow on the roads to prevent glare ice from forming overnight.
   A shipment of salt was expected to be in port on Feb. 19, but Andreson said the biggest problem is Sanford is not able to stockpile the salt because the salt shed is too small. He said it only holds about 300 tons of salt, barely enough for a single storm.
   Andreson said the town is already over budget for salt and overtime.
   “We budgeted for 4,200 tons of salt and we’ve already used 4,584 tons,” he said. “We budgeted $189,000 and spend $247,00.”
   He said one of the reasons they are over budget is because when International Salt, the company Sanford has a contract with, ran out of salt in December, Sanford turned to Monson Companies, based in South Portland for salt, but had to pay more.
   He said the town budgeted $91,000 for overtime for highway and sanitation crews, but was over budget by $3,800.
   “We still have about six more weeks of winter,” Andreson said. “But we intend to keep plowing and keep salting.”
   Goodwin said sand was available, but said it insulates the ice and makes the roads more difficult and costlier to clean up later.
   Normally, he said, the sand is mixed with salt, but with a lack of salt, crews were just trying to plow as much as possible.
   Branches and power lines, heavy with snow and ice, caused power outages across the state.
   Many residents in Acton and Shapleigh were without power overnight.
   Michael McMahon of Norton Ridge in Shapleigh said his house lost power at 7 p.m. Feb. 13.
   He said he planned to use his generator, but getting it out of storage became a chore.
   “I had about 40 feet of packed snow leading up to the garage,” he said. “It was all plowed in about two feet deep.”
   He said after he dug his way into the garage, he couldn’t lift the generator over the snow bank so he drove to Sanford to buy some extra wiring.
   He and his wife used kerosene lanterns and a woodstove throughout the night.
   “At least I was able to make my wife some hot water on the woodstove for some tea,” he said.
   McMahon said he was glad this ice storm wasn’t as bad as the ice storm of 1998 when he and his wife fled their home after two days and rented a motel room along the coast for several days.
To contact Renee Worthing, email news@intheregister.com or 282-4337 ext. 240