Frederick city prepares for second round of snow
Mayor extends snow emergency, halts removal efforts
City crews will halt snow removal efforts and begin to focus on pushing back the snow already on the ground to the mountainous sidewalks around the city. McClement said that he was informed that at least 5 inches of snow will blanket the city beginning Tuesday morning, and that efforts to remove already fallen snow to other locations would cease until after the second storm has passed.
"I'm not going to remove it and have it pile up again," he said.
City crews worked 12-hour shifts beginning Friday night, trying to keep up with more than 2 feet of snow that cloaked the city during the weekend. The crews were relieved on Sunday night at 4 p.m., to resume 8-hour shift beginning Monday morning.
Given the new forecast, McClement said crews will resume 12-hour shifts again today. These shifts will put about 30 pieces of equipment on the street at once.
Marc Stachowski, acting deputy director of operations, said Sunday that the public works department was preparing for recovery mode, getting as much snow as possible off of streets and sidewalks.
"Over the next three to five days, it's kind of like an excavation process that we're about to go through now," he said.
The crews have already begun focusing on closing off roads and pushing back as much snow as possible to make every two-way road accessible both ways. They will also begin to focus on clearing alleyways that have not yet been plowed.
The city anticipates blocking driveway entrances, sidewalks and crosswalks. Enforcement of the sidewalk snow-clearing requirement for residents will be lax, the mayor said.
"We are aware that it will roll over onto sidewalks that people already cleared, so we apologize up front," he said.
After the Tuesday storm, McClement said snow removal would resume, with trucks hauling the snow to the parking lot of Harry Grove Stadium.
McClement said the key to weathering the next storm will be residents adhering to the snow emergency requirements of removing cars from snow emergency routes, and traveling on the routes as little as possible.
All residential trash collection scheduled for pick up from Feb. 5 through Feb. 8 was suspended, and was scheduled to resume on Wednesday for the missed Friday and Saturday collection and Thursday for the missed Monday morning collection.
"We're playing [city services] by ear," he said. "We're having a hard time getting cars around; it's going to be harder to get trash trucks around."
E-mail Erica L. Green at egreen@gazette.net.