Substantial snowfall means business boost for landscaping companies, hardware stores
ARDMORE, Pa. - For some businesses, substantial snow in the forecast could mean extra cash they have not seen for almost two years now.
Finn McPoyle, owner of McPoyle Landscaping LLC based out of Havertown, spent the morning getting his trucks ready, and says they will likely be getting to work as early as 3 a.m.
He says they still had to maintain their equipment for the past two years, despite them getting little use.
"We do paver walkways every once in a while to stay busy during the winter, we even do little junk removal jobs," he said. "In a perfect world, I would like to see a nice storm every week. That would be awesome."
The staff at D.M.I. Home Supply and Renter Center in Ardmore would agree.
Philadelphia snow forecast: How many inches should you expect overnight?
Philadelphia may be on the verge of seeing it's snowless streak of more than 700 days come to an end with snow expected to fall Monday night into early Tuesday afternoon.
Sales manager, Brian Taylor, says people started coming in for supplies as soon as they heard the forecast. He's thrilled the shovels, salt, and other supplies that they had to take off the shelves and put back in storage twice are now finally leave the store.
He says some customers couldn't find their winter gear.
"A lot of lost shovels, yeah, because they haven’t used them in two years," he says. "People moved, didn’t bring them with them."
At the state level, a spokesperson for PennDOT says District six had a winter budget last year for $25 million, but spent $9 million of it due to the mild winter. Of the 127,000 tons of salt on hand, they only used roughly 10,000 tons.
They say the surplus money is used for their core maintenance program to include activities such as patching, pothole repairs, shoulder cutting, crack sealing, drainage work, bridge work, and seal coats. Any additional surplus is used for resurfacing projects.