Three-Day Snowstorm Brings County To Halt

 

By Chris Jones

MILFORD — A snowstorm that continued into its third day Tuesday closed schools, government and businesses while dumping close to two feet of snow in Pike County.
Port Jervis recorded 19 inches of snow by Tuesday morning, with flurries still continuing.
Local roads were plowed but remained snow-covered, hard-packed and slippery. What little traffic there was traveled at reduced speed.
I-84 near Westfall and Milford had some clear patches, but other lanes were snow-covered.
Tuesday morning PennDOT posted that the entire length of Interstate 84 was under Tier 4 restrictions, meaning no commercial vehicles are permitted, but tractor-trailers were seen traveling the highway nevertheless.
Also under Tier 4, all school buses, commercial buses, motor coaches, motorcycles, RVs/motor homes and passenger vehicles (cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, etc.) that are towing trailers are not permitted on affected roadways while restrictions are in place.
Pike County Government Offices and Courts were closed on Monday and Tuesday, due to the winter storm, but many county services are available online at https://www.pikepa.org/Online
Several Pike County municipalities have scheduled meetings on the first Monday of the month. Westfall Township canceled theirs while Blooming Grove, which normally has a live meeting met by Zoom.
Milford Township supervisors normally meet together at the township building with the audience Zooming in, but on Monday the supervisors all remained at home and Zoomed the meeting.
Milford Township Roadmaster Gary Williams said the town deployed two snowplows starting at 4:30 p.m. Sunday and they were still going Monday evening.
"It was hard to keep up with it, but when I checked at 6 p.m. [Monday] the roads were in good shape," Williams said. "We'll wait till morning to melt it down to black-top.".

 

 

Weather Dominates Conversation In Blooming Grove

By Jeremy Van Duyne

BLOOMING GROVE — This week's blizzard raged for over two days and blanketed all of Northeastern Pennsylvania with quite a few feet of snow. For officials in townships across the area, the snowstorm forced them to alter their plans in order to conduct business.
Township officials in Blooming Grove were forced to hold their first meeting for the month of February completely virtual via Zoom. Officials met on Monday from the safety of their homes, streaming the meeting live on Facebook for everyone to watch.
The then ongoing blizzard dominated parts of the meeting's conversation. Chairman Nicholas Mazza wanted to ensure that all viewers stayed safe and were informed of the current weather conditions. Mazza had received several reports on the expected turnout for snowfall. He said that all of the reports were predicting upwards of over 30 inches of snow for the Pike County area.
"I received an email from the head of the Matamoras Emergency Management," Mazza read out during the meeting. "He had attended a webinar held this afternoon with the National Weather Service based out of Binghamton. They are now projecting 24 to over 30 inches of snow for our area."
"Now after that I took a look at Accuweather weather. There is a small area on the map, and we are in the heaviest forecasted area. They are predicting 24 to 36 inches of snow for our area."....For more information subscribe to our paper.

Bandshell Discussion Includes
Community House, Santos Farm

 

By Dakota Hendricks

MILFORD — The Milford Borough Parks and Recreation Committee held a Zoom meeting to discuss the details of a proposed bandshell in the Borough.
The discussion, moderated by Mayor Sean Strub, involved whether to pursue the idea of building a bandshell in the Borough at Ann Street Park or another location. Commissioner Matt Osterberg, speaking as the President of the Milford Community House Board, said the Community House is considering building an outdoor stage with a "state of the art" sound system for performances as well as public bathrooms.
They are also planning on renovating the basement of the facility to create a "dirty room" for art classes and other events. The building would be on the Blackberry Alley side of the property. Osterberg said the eight- member board has been hard at work fundraising for the project and they are looking forward to beginning the project as soon as they get funding.
In response to a question, Osterberg said the board would begin work immediately if they are awarded the LSA grants they applied for. LSA grant approvals are usually released around April each year. Several residents on the call expressed interest and support for the project; however, some asked if the heavy traffic nearby would make it difficult to hear performances.
Councilman Luke Turano, his co-host Michael Zimmerman from Music in the Park, and Strub made it clear they are not attempting to revive the old "Pike County Days" which once flooded the Ann Street park with over 5,000 attendees. Strub said in years past the music event was "overwhelming" and made it a serious challenge to manage the noise. He said there is some consideration on building a bandshell on the Santos Farm property as well as attempts to have more access to the natural amphitheater at Grey Towers.
A bandshell in the Borough would be for local performances of a much smaller scale....For more information subscribe to our paper.

 

Groundhog Phil
Predicts Six More
Weeks Of Winter

PUNXSUTAWNEY, PA — Pennnsylvania's own world-famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Tuesday, predicting six more weeks of winter. For the first-ever virtual Groundhog Day celebration, visitors from all over the world tuned in to see Phil make his highly anticipated weather prognostication for the 135th time.
"Groundhog Day is a beloved Pennsylvania tradition that has been embraced wholeheartedly by Phil's faithful fans from around the world for generations," said Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. "Although we couldn't celebrate together in person this year, viewers could experience the magic of Phil's prediction virtually by watching from their homes while prioritizing everyone's health and safety."
The story of the holiday tradition declares that if the groundhog emerges early on the morning of February 2 and sees his shadow, we will have six more weeks of winter weather. Should he not see his shadow, we will have an early spring. The annual event began in 1886, when a spirited group of groundhog hunters dubbed themselves "The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club" and proclaimed Punxsutawney Phil to be the one and only weather prognosticating groundhog.....For more information subscribe to our paper.

 

Girls Wrestling Combined Team Wins Two Out Of Three Matches

By Wayne Witkowski

WESTFALL — While Delaware Valley High School's wrestling team ran its unbeaten streak to seven — sweeping four dual matches over the weekend — and Preston Machado nailed down his 100th career victory, the school's new girls wrestling team made a successful debut in a tournament on Saturday at Gettysburg High School.
Five of the six wrestlers on the girls team were ready for action, and Delaware Valley wrestling coach Lou DeLauro said the five were combined with wrestlers from two other teams onto one squad that won two out of three matches. Other girls' teams likewise had been merged into teams to make up complete lineups.
One of the Delaware Valley wrestlers, Alia Narvaez, won three of her four bouts.
"It was great putting a team out there and maybe, hopefully, moving in the right direction," said DeLauro. " It is our hope to have an official team recognized by our school board shortly. There are nine girls (interscholastic) teams in the state right now and we want to have the 10th team."
Delaware Valley senior Danah Downer, junior Kaelyn Balbirer and sophomores Patty Albro, Narvaez and Sarah Seltzer participated in the tournament. Senior Lily Sherer, the other team member, did not go to the tournament. She and Downer wrestled on the boys varsity the past two seasons, but Sherer was needed to fill an empty spot in the lineup for the boys team last Saturday when the usual starter at 132 pounds and his backup were out with injuries.
"I'm very optimistic," said Sherer assessing the prospects of a girls team. "They did well on Saturday. I watched it on a video stream. I think they will do well in the state tournament."Sherer won PA USA state championships in her freshman and junior years at Delaware Valley in the 140-pound weight class. She was second in her sophomore year competing at 128 pounds.....For more information subscribe to our paper.