After the Snow

My hat is off to the Department of Transportation for its excellent response to the recent blizzard. The last we had this much snow (in 1996), DOT received nearly 10,000 calls for service. This time, the number of calls was down to about 1,100.

At Tuesday's briefing to the Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee on snow removal after the recent blizzard, I was reminded how truly complex and sophisticated the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) snow removal procedures are. Did you know that DOT clears 5,085 lane miles when it snows? In the case of large amounts of snow, they clear these lanes multiple times (for a total of 18,000 miles in this case). This requires a workforce of over 400 personnel (some County employees and some contractors). Early estimates indicate the cost of the recent snowstorm is more than $5 million.

To understand more about the County’s snow removal policies and what they mean to you, check out the very informative bulletin, Winter Weather Operations - Salting and Snow Removal. Essentially, DOT clears emergency routes and primary residential streets completely before beginning to clear neighborhood streets.

The December blizzard dropped about two feet of snow throughout the entire County. DOT anticipates that clearing this much snow takes 48 to 60 hours. In this case, DOT completed the work in this timeframe. Still, some residents raised questions about the timing and quality of snow removal in their neighborhoods.

Some have suggested that wealthy neighborhoods were cleared before less affluent neighborhoods. Based on the correspondence I received in my office from residents all over the County and from yesterday’s briefing, I can say unequivocally that this is not true. All residential streets, including cul-de-sacs, are treated equally.

Some residents said that their streets weren’t plowed. In a very few cases, DOT’s Geographic Information System (GIS) was not correct. In these cases, DOT updated its GIS so that the error will not occur again.

More often, plows had been down a street once, but because of continued heavy snowfall and stiff winds, plowing was not evident to residents. Snowplows returned to residential streets for further clearing later. It is important to note that DOT’s policy is to make residential streets passable, not to clear them to bare pavement. This policy appears to have caused some confusion. Although we would like to have bare pavement, such a policy would add unreasonable expense and time to the overall clearing project.

For the most part, residents were patient during this storm, and there is no question patience was needed, especially for those whose streets were plowed near the end of the clearing period. The entire briefing will be posted on the Web soon. If you continue to have questions, check out DOT’s website. And let’s hope we don’t see another blizzard like this in the near future.