At 7:00 AM on February 11, Town Administrator Jerry Schiro relayed the news that the regularly scheduled February 11 2010 meeting of the Middleburg Town Council had been cancelled.

Record-breaking snowstorms on January 29 and February 10 dropped nearly three feet of snow on Middleburg and surrounding countryside. Chest high drifts were common. Blown and plowed snow piles as high as 24 feet were reported along some roads in the north and west. Some lost power, water, heat, and communication for days.

To the casual observer on the eve of the twin blizzards things already looked grim. The town's snow removal budget had been cut, and by late January, was already well overspent. The town's street maintenance department had been reduced by budget reductions to a staff of one.

According to Mayor Betsy Davis, Middleburg's response to the crisis was nothing less than heroic.

As temperatures above freezing finally returned, Davis, Police Chief Steve Webber, and Town Administrator Schiro all praised the residents and merchants of Middleburg, town employees, and many, many subcontractors for their resilience and hard work to keep the town alive and moving.

Special Thanks

Praise was universal for Middleburg's street maintenance department of one, Marvin Simms, the man who, in the words of Jerry Schiro, had for the past two years "carried alone the entire burden of street related tasks".

As Schiro put it, "With back to back record snow fall events, Marvin Simms was on duty for as long as 36 hours at a time, only catching brief naps. He has diligently monitored the work of contractors, taken calls from tenants at the Health Center and been an invaluable aid to me in managing the logistics for events of this magnitude.

"If not for dedication and loyalty of the Town Employees," Schiro noted, "this Town would have been in dire straights on numerous occasions. Marvin Simms is an outstanding example of that dedication and loyalty".

Asked about both heroes and villains produced by the storm, Mayor Betsy Davis replied, "We had ALL heroes! I am so impressed and amazed at the amazing cleanup our town did.

"Marvin Simms, of course, worked above and beyond," she noted, "as did the subcontractors that Jerry Schiro hired. They even cleared a lot of the sidewalks which was such a help to our businesses..... it was almost too much for us to do ourselves!

"The police department," Mayor Davis continued, "was ALWAYS on duty, thanks to both good planning by Chief Webber and the kindness of Jo Ann and Kevin Hazard who opened their Middleburg Country Inn to our officers.

"And last, but certainly not least was the amazing work that Jerry {Schiro} did to get these crews in town and get the work done. As you know, we had no actual contracts with any companies to do our snow removal (our request for snow removal contract bids this Fall went unanswered), but he still got it done and done well!"