Drive through Manalapan Township and you'll see broken and bent mailboxes.
It's a common occurrence for residents of the Monmouth County town. A city plow drove a wave of wet, sloppy, heavy snow into Andrew Hartung's mailbox, ripping it apart.
"I checked the surveillance camera. It looks like the plow was flying down, that it was maybe two or three inches of slush on the ground," he said. "You can see in the video the snow was coming over it."
While Hartung and 75 others are upset about the mailbox massacre, the township is offering $50 to anyone who needs their mailbox repaired. Meanwhile, they'll continue to do whatever they must to keep the streets clear.
City officials say plows should avoid getting close to the curb, but this could cause mail delivery issues.
"If you don't [get close to the curb], then the mailmen complain that they cannot get to the mailboxes," said Department of Public Works Director Alan Spector. "So there's pluses and minuses to each town and how they do it."
When his mailbox was knocked down last year, Hartung says refused to take the city's money and instead fixed it himself. He paid $150 for a replacement.
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Hartung is speaking out in hopes that this will be the last storm where he'll have to deal with a broken mailbox.
"Snowplowers, they have a hard job, very busy, but they are not held accountable when something like this happens," he said. "$50 isn't going to get you too far. That's going to get you the piece of wood to hold it up again.
