If Trend Continues, Brookhaven's 2026 Snow Removal Could Be 'On Par' With 2015's Record Cold That Cost $10M

FARMINGVILLE, NY — As Mother Nature dumped a few more inches of snow on Brookhaven on Wednesday, the town’s Highways Superintendent Dan Losquadro was faced with a setback in the clean-up efforts and spoke with Patch about what the numbers could mean for 2026 if the trend continues with heavy snowfall.

Before this week's snowfall, the town spent $2 million over its budgeted $5.4 million for snow removal and mitigation, according to Losquadro.

“Obviously, we are above our initial budget amount,” he said. “But even with this storm and the continuing cleanup, I know we are not in danger of exceeding the amount that we have in our snow reserve.”​

“We have a very healthy snow reserve that we have accumulated over a number of mild winters,” he said. “We have been very smart to not just spend that money. We've put a lot of it away knowing that this is Long Island and you can get these winters, you know, this will probably be on par with 2015, which was the year we set record cold for January and February.”​

That year, the town spent about $10 million, according to Losquadro.

“I would not be I would not be surprised if this year was around that,” he said of 2026. “I don't want to spitball it, so to speak. We don't have the luxury of saying we will only clean up to a certain dollar figure. Obviously, the roads need to be cleared. They need to be made safe. But I think it's years like this that you show the prudence of, you know, creating these reserve accounts and not having to go out and bond for monies in excess of your budget.”​

“I imagine there probably will be some municipalities that will have to float snow bonds, but I know that Brookhaven will not be among them,” he added.

Before the storm, his department was successful in getting “a significant number of additional payloaders” to work on the cleanup, which now includes lifting the heavy snow and moving it. ​About $2 million was transferred to buy additional rock salt, as well, he said.

Losquadro previously told Patch that despite competitive rates, the town does not have as many plows working as it did in past years, due to myriad reasons, including the lack of skilled labor, and rising insurance and equipment costs.

Losquadro was reluctant to place a timeline for the snow removal to be completed.​

“Unfortunately, it made us have to shift gears again (on Wednesday) morning,” he said.

On Thursday, the department plans to spend the entire day widening roads, clearing intersections – all of the tedious things after a major storm. ​

The crews have been working steadily, but Wednesday’s snowfall forced them back to scraping “literally every road in the town, and calling in hired plows to help with that endeavor,” Losquadro said, adding that it is a "time-consuming" process that takes away from what was planned for the day.

Losquadro would not estimate how long the job will take.​

“I guess that's somewhat dependent on temperatures,” he said. “It looks like we may have a decent warm-up coming into the weekend that will certainly help, but I expect that a lot of widening intersections and sight lines will take us several more work days.”​

“Unfortunately, today would have been one of those days, and we got pulled off of that because of another three inches of snow this morning,” he said. “I'm reluctant to say at this point to put any sort of timeline on it, because — who knows — we may get more snow.”​

Losquadro said he planned to call his crews off at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, and then bring them in again at 4 a.m. on Thursday.​

“Hopefully, we won't be dealing with really any icy conditions,” he added.