“No Easy Button:” Richmond Recovers From Historic Storm
By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
February 25th 2026
RICHMOND – The Town Hall remained closed on Wednesday as crews from the Department of Public Works slogged through the cleanup of the most severe winter storm in Rhode Island history.
The town received about 33 inches of snow, but the snow removal work is going well.
By late morning on Wednesday, all town roads had at least one lane open, and work to open all roads completely was progressing.
Challenges for Town Staff
For Town Administrator Erin Liese, the storm was the biggest test since her appointment in December 2025.
“I thought that the boil-water ban [last September] would have been, but yes, this far exceeds that, for sure,” she said.
After spending Tuesday working from the DPW building, Liese is now working from home, because the town has prioritized clearing the roads. and has not yet plowed the Town Hall parking lot.
“We didn’t want to pull resources off the road to clear parking,” she said.
DPW employees, eight full time and one seasonal, worked through the storm.
“We make sure that, because there’s nothing open, obviously, we purchased a lot of cold cuts, sandwiches,” Liese said. “The garage, they have their tradition of ‘garage ham,’ meatballs. A lot of the spouses are really great. They bring in food to share and because of our previous efforts in the community, we still had the Gatorade, the water and a lot of the snacks that weren’t utilized in the last storm, so they were well fed throughout.”
Liese said the DPW employees were directed to go home at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday evening.”
“We’re very lucky, because we have so many people that are local residents that have worked in conjunction with Carolina Fire. All the emergency needs were met very swiftly, so there was no delay that way,” she said. “They needed to get some sleep, so, to make the call last night, I had to say ‘no more. You guys have got to go home and sleep.’”
Blizzards are Expensive
Snowstorms are notorious town budget-busters. Liese said that with the cleanup ongoing, she had not calculated the total amount spent on supplies and overtime, but she said the cost was significant.
“It’s another Sunday storm event, so that’s overtime, double time costs, but it was 44 hours straight with every staff member of public works,” she said. “As well, we had five additional vendors. They’re high.”
The town also ordered more salt and gravel before the storm. The materials are mixed and applied together to add traction to road surfaces and further stretch the salt supply.
“We got three loads of salt Friday, which we can’t do straight salt here,” Liese explained. “We mix with gravel, so we got the same amount of that and that bill, for Friday, is $15,000 alone, I think, just for the salt portion of it.”
Liese noted that administrators were keeping detailed records of storm-related expenses.
“We’re accounting for every dollar of this storm, should FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] have a snow reimbursement,” she said. “The benchmark on snow removal at FEMA is not great; however, we’re going to try.”
The Police Response
Police Chief Elwood Johnson said Wednesday that the department was fully staffed and prepared for the storm.
“We had ample crew,” he said. “We did bring in one or two on overtime, but we had enough staffing to manage the storm and fortunately, because of the conditions and people heeding the advice to stay sheltered inside, we really were able to manage keeping the parking lot clear, the cruisers and fleet fueled and ready to go.”
There were a few snow-related automobile accidents, but no serious incidents.
Johnson said his department worked closely with the DPW, the Emergency Management Agency and Rhode Island Energy.
“I think the public did the best by preparing themselves, sheltering in place, staying off the road, that helps everybody out, because what happens with one or two people venturing out, out of curiosity, thinking they can have an adequate vehicle to travel, they get caught up and they go off the road into a bank, and now you’re trying up police, potentially rescue, and snowplows,” he said. “Snowplows actually struggled with this storm. It was so intense. There is no easy button. I didn’t expect that there would be.”
There was one fatality on Monday evening, but Johnson said it was unrelated to the storm.
“We had a request by a family member to check on their parent, who they hadn’t seen in 24 hours, and that person lived in the northern end of town [and] was a 67-year-old male with a significant list of health problems,” he said.
The road had not been cleared, but police went to the home and confirmed that the man was deceased.
“We had a police officer at that site, waiting for the funeral home to arrive, so we dedicated one person to that property for almost 24 hours,” Johnson said. “Our thoughts are with that family.”
A State of Emergency
On Tuesday, Town Council President Samantha Wilcox signed a declaration of a State of Emergency, renewing the declaration for the town signed on Feb. 22 by Gov. Dan McKee.
The town declaration will ensure that Richmond is eligible for disaster relief funds, even if the state declaration expires.
“As per our ordinance, the Town Council President has the full authority to make this type of declaration,” Wilcox said. “We felt like it was the best course of action moving forward for securing funds, in case the state doesn’t keep their state of emergency going, so we can qualify for relief funds, as well as to empower our staff to be able to effectively handle emergencies.”
Please Stay at Home
Liese said she hoped residents would be patient as the cleanup continues.
“I feel you,” she said. “I’m a resident myself. I’m on a private road. We snow-blowed our entire [road]. … If people can stay home, we’re doing the best we can, and snow is not intentionally being put in anybody’s driveways. If you have an asset as a neighbor, a snowblower, and you haven’t seen your neighbor cleared and you could help, all of this would go a lot faster - and don’t put snow in the road.”
