LONG BEACH, NY. — The City of Long Beach was hardly the only part of Long Island to get hit by a blizzard Sunday — one that left much of the island covered in two feet of snow and over 17,000 Long Islanders without power — but the challenge of fighting the storm on the barrier island is unique: two feet of snow have been dropped on the relatively small landmass, and there’s limited room to put it. According to City Manager Dan Creighton, however, crews have already been working throughout the night to clear roads in the city limits.

“We have about 40 pieces of heavy equipment out there with multiple minor pieces of equipment. We have all hands on deck,” Creighton said. “We brought in people last night, pretty much as it started snowing, to prep the roads, and then we started plowing operations. We’ve been working straight through the night and then we’ve got people on duty now. Unfortunately, it keeps coming down, and it’s a pretty big storm compared to what we’re used to over the last 10 years.”

While crews began working on the roads Sunday, Creighton said there was one traditional snow prep tool that was absent from this round of road work: Salt. With a blizzard this immense, the city manager said road salt wouldn’t have stopped snow from accumulating on streets, so the city didn’t deploy it ahead of the blizzard.

“Typically we do, but this time we knew there would be such an accumulation, all that [salt] really would just go to the curb line,” Creighton said. “So really wouldn’t do much, so we just pretty much started plowing operations right away…As this starts to slow down, we will be plowing with the salting operation behind it.”

Another complicating factor has been the wind, which deposited snow on streets within minutes after they were plowed.

“It definitely makes it much more difficult because we’re plowing…the plow goes by, this snow keeps coming, plus the wind, pushing it from the plows that move it to the side, and it built it right back up on the road. So it really makes it much more difficult to clear the roads,” Creighton said.

Creighton said the city would “play it by ear” as far as starting salting operations, and asked Long Beach residents to avoid shoveling snow into streets where possible.

“This is a difficult one, because we know land is limited. The real thing that we’d ask is to make sure, number one, you get sidewalks cleared off, so that people can get by and get around the neighborhood,” Creighton said. “But we would ask everybody not to just push it right back into the street, because what happens is we plow it again, and it just takes [the snow] right back in…it just creates the same problem all over again.”

As the city begins looking at its snow-clearing efforts, Creighton said there are a couple of factors working in Long Beach’s favor that weren’t present during January’s blizzard. For one, the city learned where large piles of snow would cause disruptions after January’s storm, and has been able to adjust its plans accordingly when plowing. Another friendly break for city officials was, perhaps ironically, in the weather. It’s warmer now, the city manager said, than it was when snow fell in January. That warmth, he said, might make moving the snow around a little easier.

“I think we’re a little luckier because we don’t have the cold spell that we had after the last one,” Creighton said. “So, we will be lucky enough that it won’t turn into what I call ‘Snowcrete.’ But it will take some time to do it right, because the winds are intense.”