By Jeanne Sager
SULLIVAN COUNTY — January 8, 2002 - The fresh white coating dropped on the Sullivan County landscape proved to be as dangerous as it was beautiful.
With the blanket of snow on the ground Monday morning, setting out for work was an adventure for people from the Town of Fremont to the Town of Mamakating.
And it proved deadly for Anthony Colosimo, 71, of Hasbrouck Road in Loch Sheldrake, who lost control of his vehicle in the Town of Thompson Monday morning.
According to Det. Ed Simon of the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department, Colosimo was driving on Anawana Lake Road from Hurleyville to Monticello when he lost control of his car.
The exact cause of the accident is still under investigation, as is the cause of death.
The Monticello Fire Department, MobileMedic, Monticello Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene.
There were a few other accidents reported to both the Sheriff’s Department and the State Police; however, most were minor incidents.
In the hamlet of Lava, a car plowed into a Sullivan County Department of Public Works (DPW) plow truck. The car had to be towed, but there were no injuries to either driver, said Pete Lilholt, commissioner of the county’s DPW.
By Monday afternoon, things seemed to be calming down.
All the schools in the county had been closed by mid-morning, and electricity had been restored to most of the homes which lost power during the brunt of the storm.
According to Steve Sabine of NYSEG’s Liberty office, only about 30 customers lost power during the night, most in the Callicoon area.
By mid-Monday afternoon only one family was still without power.
The DPW was out plowing late Sunday night, and despite a few minor mishaps, the job was easily accomplished, said Lilholt.
“It’s a typical wet snowstorm,” Lilholt said Monday. “What we’ve been seeing is different across the county, from close to two feet in the Town of Rockland to as little as three inches in the Town of Mamakating.”
The county’s large fleet of trucks were already online for the first major snowstorm of the year, and there were only a few minor breakdowns during the night.
“In this line of work, our biggest fear is equipment breaking down, because then we have to shift the workload over onto other trucks,” Lilholt explained. “But we’re in very good shape.
“We had a smooth call-out, the crews worked through the night and we had a smooth transition of crews this morning,” he noted.
The behind-the-scenes events at the Town of Delaware Town Barn were just as smooth, despite nearly a foot of freshly fallen white stuff, said Highway Superintendent Bill Eschenberg.
“This is the first snowstorm we’ve really had to deal with, but we’re doing fine,” he said Monday, about 15 hours into the town’s cleanup. “We were prepared, and we’re running smoothly.”
Said County Manager Dan Briggs, “We’re doing fine, the roads are clear and the temperature is forecasted to warm up to 37 or so.”
The county’s government center was open for business Monday morning, Briggs said, and many of the area’s businesses and facilities seemed to be as well.
“People were taking it slow this morning,” he noted.