First Selectman Henry Tirrell is not expecting the road maintenance problems his predecessor faced last year even though 2025 dealt up a real winter in its last two months with low temperatures and frequent little storms.
Despite the series of little storms and last week’s more significant ice and snow, there have been no serious problems and no shortage of road maintenance materials.
“The town crew has been putting in the hours,” he said Wednesday. “They were out Friday night into Saturday and then they were back on Sunday, but considering how windy it was, there were no big problems.”
Last February when ice coated the entire state, the town ran out of salt because its supplier was serving larger communities first. Normally, salt is delivered within 10 days of when Public Works foreman Troy Lamere puts in an order to Morton Salt of New Haven. But despite two orders and repeated calls, the town’s supply was not replenished for two weeks.
Norfolk can store only 500 tons of salt and, since it uses between 100 and 160 tons per storm, each delivery prepares the town for only four or five storms.
Following the Presidents Day debacle, state legislators instructed the supplier to find solutions to the gridlock. “I think the supplier is on top of it this year,” Tirrell said. “That was a larger supply chain issue.”
Problems with salt deliveries started in 2021 when the Connecticut Port Authority prepared to use the State Pier in New London for wind turbine development. New London and New Haven were the only ports in the state that could receive shipments of salt, and the New London salt supplier was forced out of business by the move. All salt deliveries were then routed through New Haven and contractors waited in long lines to pick up their deliveries.
Even though deliveries to towns are now more regular, Tirrell said the town crew will be conservative. “It snows, we plow it, then the sidewalks and roads melt and freeze again when the temperatures drop and we have to go out again,” he said. “We will be more conservative and mix our sand and salt. I’m hoping it will be milder in January.”