Westfield's took 17 and a half hours to plow following the snow storm which pummeled the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend, leaving the town buried under eight inches of snow.

Public Works Superintendent Claude Schaffer said the plowing started at 8 p.m. on Saturday evening and did not end until 1:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, a time period which included two full plows townwide. The department had 35 workers out clearing the roads and town sidewalks.

Schaffer said the process went fairly easy given the powder conditions of the snow blanketing the town over the weekend. He compared the snow to some of the storms from last winter.

"This was a more powdery snow than the last two of last year," he said. noting the high ice count in the last two snow falls of last winter.

Schaffer said the department used an average amount of salt for the road clearing this weekend and is prepared in case another snow storm should hit the town this winter. He noted that all town roads have been cleared and that while there is still snow on some roads, most town roads are down to the asphalt. The clearing process has been helped by the temperatures hovering just above freezing and the sunny conditions on Sunday and Monday.

Schaffer said that from his analysis most private sidewalks in town have been cleared by residents. He urged residents who have not shoveled their sidewalks to do so and said that they should not put the snow in the street but rather on to lawns and other privately owned grass in town. He said this will help keep the roads clear for drivers.

Above all, Schaffer said his department was helped by a storm which didn't live up all of the hype based on it's impact in South Jersey, Washington and the Carolinas.

"This wasn't that bad," he said. "It was a long storm but it was about eight inches and we dealt with it pretty good."