Schuylkill County Digs Out from the Great Nor’easter of 2021

It was all fun and games (or sitting inside doing nothing) but once the snow from the Great Nor’easter of 2021 stopped falling on Schuylkill County, it was time to start digging out from it.

And there was A LOT of snow.

In some of the hardest hit areas of Schuylkill County, snow piled up 20 or more inches. One thing was clear after taking a look at some of those communities: it’ll be a while until things return to some form of normal.

ALSO READ: Snow Totals from the Great Nor’easter of 2021

Schuylkill County Digs Out from Great Nor’easter of 2021

Of all aspects of a big snowstorm, digging out is easily the worst part. OK, maybe the treacherous driving is a bit worse but you can’t get that far until you’ve done your share of digging out.

In Orwigsburg, The Canary spotted an all-hands-on-deck effort to remove mountains of snow from the town square. Police vehicles blocked off traffic while a front end loader and skid steer worked at shoveling massive amounts of snow.

According to National Weather Service, portions of southern Schuylkill County – between Schuylkill Haven and Auburn – got close to 2 feet of snow from the big snowstorm that started on Sunday and didn’t shut off until early Tuesday morning.

Each shovel load from Orwigsburg’s square got dumped into a stream of trucks and taken to somewhere that it didn’t have to be shoveled. Now, while the snow was getting removed from the business hub of Orwigsburg, the side streets of the borough were still tricky for motorists.

In Schuylkill Haven, the main roads were mostly cleared and traffic was moving smoothly by mid-afternoon Tuesday.

A weather spotter there measured just more than 20 inches of snow late Monday night. It’s likely a little more fell on Haven before the snow finally stopped.

Getting around Pottsville was pretty tricky Tuesday, too. Even though the city saw just a little less snow than our neighbors in Haven and Orwigsburg, there are a lot more streets so getting them clear takes a little more time.

Just take a look at West Norwegian Street on Tuesday afternoon. Residents there had to dig themselves out some parking spaces and pile up the snow on the other side of the street.

Eventually, all that snow will have to go somewhere, too. Where? Nowhere fast, is where.

Photos: Coal Region Canary

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