WORCESTER - This city, like Rome, claims to be built on seven hills.
Snowplow drivers need not be reminded.
In the teeth of Thursday’s predicted blizzard, at least 350 trucks will be out clearing streets that, in some cases, are as steep as a triple-decker-lined ski slope, while others climb to an elevation of 800 or more feet.
“We just keep moving,” says Worcester’s assistant director of public works, Richard B. Cavalieri, 61, who will man the DPW plowing command center on Albany Street.
Mr. Cavalieri has worked snowstorms for the DPW for 40 years, cutting his teeth on the Blizzard of '78. “I might have worked 120 hours that week,” he recalled. “We work some big hours. But that’s what Public Works does. We head into the storm while everybody, you know, is in bed.”
Worcester presents particular challenges for snow cleanup. At more than 500 square miles, “it’s a big city from one end to the other,” observed DPW employee Bill Berg, 52, who has been driving a snowplow here for 18 winters. And a lot of that territory is up and down.
Mr. Berg described plowing snow at Worcester Regional Airport, 1,000 feet above sea level. “More snow, more wind, more weather,” he said. “It’s like being up in a cloud. You’re at the same height as the clouds are, and that’s where the snow comes from.”
Other high elevations in the city, the DPW veterans said, include the top of Chester Street; upper Grove Street, which is 800 feet above sea level; and the top of West Mountain Street, by the Holden line, aka the Summit - only about 100 feet shy of the airport's 1,000-foot elevation.
Steep streets include Eastern Avenue and several off Lincoln Street that Mr. Cavalieri said “go straight up,” and are made even more challenging by the cars parked on both sides.
“Belmont Street is a good-sized hill,” he added. “A lot of people think, they have front-wheel drive, you’re gonna get up that hill - can’t always make it. We work pretty hard to keep that clear, at least passable. It’s a tough hill to keep open.”
And of course there is George Street, site of the annual uphill bike challenge, a 500-foot-hill with an average grade of 18 percent. (The maximum grade on an interstate highway is 6 percent.) Who plows that?
“We do!” exclaimed Mr. Berg. “We don’t use big trucks on that one. We go down. There’s no way to go up.”
Mr. Berg was asked the secret to plowing hills. “Slow and easy,” he said. “Let the machine work its way up. Patience. Be careful of everything around you. There are a lot of cars parked on road. You really have to look out for what’s around you.
“You try to think ahead before you start getting up a hill,” he said. “There’s no backing down.”
Mr. Cavalieri said he expects between 350 and 390 trucks will be on the road at the height of the storm, depending on how many contractors show up. Contractors make up 90 percent of the fleet for plowing, with the rest city personnel, he said.
The city has 35 to 40 pieces of equipment, Mr. Cavalieri said. Most of the loaders are all-wheel drive and fitted with chains, Mr. Berg said. “They take the hills pretty good,” he said.
More than 400 personnel will be out plowing during the storm, said Mr. Cavalieri, whose duty at the dispatch center starts at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. “I’ll be on from the beginning to the end,” he said. “Most of these guys will be.”
Mr. Cavalieri said: “People don’t realize how complicated it is. You’ve got all these pieces working in unison. It’s like choreography.”