Martin digging out after possible foot of snow
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MARTIN, Tenn. — Residents in Martin are simply trying to leave their homes at this point. The latest winter storm has made that simple luxury a little painstaking. “I’ve never actually seen this much snow and we were excited at first, but now we just really want to get our cars back out,” Elizabeth Belvin and Marissa Howard said. Officials say Martin was one of the hardest hit areas by this week’s winter storm, with reports coming in of more than a foot of snow. Emergency management officials say it’s the worst they’ve seen in decades. “Like a lot of small towns around here that don’t have this much snow typically, we don’t have much snow equipment,” Billy Wagster said. The streets have been cleared by an arsenal of just three city owned trucks. Wagster says they have two plows and just one salt truck to treat all city roads, which amount to about 120 miles. Officials say about 90 percent of the roads in Martin have at least a pathway cleared to get cars through. Wagster says the city has used about 65 tons of salt just for this storm, and he isn’t calling this the worst one of the year. “Temperatures cold and salt doesn’t activate well till the sun comes out and it warms up a little, so pretty slow going when you have ice,”Wagster said. “This is a lot better than the ice we had before.” Cold temperatures and white covering the green grass has some thinking of warmer days ahead. “I’m so ready for summer it is ridiculous,” Belvin and Howard said. “I’m so ready to just not be wearing seven layers.”
