By Lyle Moran
The Lowell Sun
LOWELL, Mass. — Two of the more than 45 motor-vehicle accidents Sunday morning, when black ice coated Lowell streets, involved city fire trucks.
One of the vehicles, an $800,000 ladder truck, went careening across one road and into a utility pole, City Manager Bernie Lynch said.
Lynch said he has not received an estimate on how much it will cost to repair the truck, and did not divulge the location of the crash.
The city manager also would not say where the second crash involving a Fire Department vehicle occurred. He said nobody was injured in either of the crashes, adding that a Westford fire vehicle also crashed Sunday morning to highlight that Lowell was not the only city impacted by ice on the roads.
The Lowell Police Department did not report any injuries from dozens of car accidents in the city Sunday morning. Lowell Fire Chief Edward Pitta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
City councilors urged Lynch last night to make sure a clear plan is in place for how the city’s Department of Public Works should prepare for weather that could make city roads unsafe.
Councilor Rita Mercier said she does not want to see what happened Sunday occur again. She said Lynch should instruct new DPW Commissioner Ralph Snow that he does not only have a Monday-to-Friday job.
“I want to know that public-safety officials are on call 24/7,” she said, adding that Snow “is on the clock at any given time.”
Lynch said the city’s response was comparable to other communities in the region, and that he has instructed Snow that he is expected to always be on call.
“He knows what it takes to perform the duties he was assigned,” he said.
The city manager said the DPW will continue to rely on the Police Department to alert them of dangerous road conditions, but said the temperature changed so quickly Sunday that Snow and other DPW staffers worked to get sanding trucks out on the road as soon as police called DPW.
Police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee said his men will call DPW when they notice dangerous road conditions, but said they are not studying the weather ahead of time to determine the possibility of unsafe roads. He said that is the job of DPW staffers.
“The anticipation of icy conditions is not in the Police Department’s purview,” he said.
Councilor Rodney Elliott said the city should consider having several different people on call for situations when the weather requires aggressive DPW action to keep city streets safe. He said Lynch should probably be one of the people notified.
Lynch said the city is looking at contracting with a new weather service for notifications as one measure to improve preparation for possible ice or snow storms.
In other business last night, the council voted 7-1 to send a home-rule petition to the state Legislature that, if approved, would allow 17-year-olds to vote in Lowell city elections. If the home rule passes, city voters would also need to approve it for it to go into effect.
Shawna Turay, a 17-year-old Lowell High School student, said the council’s vote is the first step toward further empowering young people in the city.
“Youth voices aren’t heard as much as we would like them to be,” she said.
Councilor Edward “Bud” Caulfield was the only councilor to vote against the petition. Councilor Kevin Broderick was absent.
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