Clearing the streets of snow and sleet from Thursday’s snowstorm continued into Friday. Overall, Jack Brinker, street supervisor, said the storm response went well.
Downtown, about 2.5 inches of snow fell. It was mixed at times with sleet and a little rain.
Crews originally planned to hit the roads at midnight Wednesday, as the storm was expected to hit early Thursday morning. However, the time for the storm’s approach kept getting pushed back.
Brinker kept an eye on the storm and at about 5 a.m. Thursday, crews began pretreating main roads and parking lots.
Pretreatment helped, Brinker said, noting that salting early activated the salt, which will work until temperatures get to about 17 degrees.
“During this storm it was never that cold,” Brinker said, adding that the coldest it got was about 21 degrees.
“The heaviest snow, right around noontime (Thursday), hurt us somewhat, but by about 3:30 or 4 p.m., everyone was traveling well on the main streets again,” he said.
With six trucks, employees spread salt and cinders through the night Thursday, working in 12-hour shifts.
The city public works department was prepared with about 700 tons of salt and 2,000 tons of cinders, both of which are still well stocked.
“We can handle a couple more storms if we need to,” Brinker said.
Brinker thanked people who stayed off the streets during the storm, as well as the hard-working snow crew.
“I appreciate the people who stayed off the roads so we could work,” he said. “That makes all the difference.”
Brinker suggested that when people shovel their driveways that they stand facing the street and shovel to the right-hand side.
Because of the direction the truck travels, this will prevent trucks from plowing back into the homeowner’s driveway, he noted.
At 10 a.m. Friday, crews were finishing the last of the plowing, widening the path on some streets and going back to other areas as needed. Brinker estimated that crews would work on storm cleanup until about 2 or 3 p.m.
