With Prince George's County struggling to meet the demand from residents to quickly clear streets, some are looking into other avenues to allow them to safely travel at least out of their neighborhoods.

Ted Hull, president of the Cool Spring Terrace Civic Association in Adelphi, said some residents have cleared their own streets, by plow and shovel, rather than wait for county crews or private contractors.

While county crews did not reach some Adelphi neighborhoods until Tuesday, Hull said one resident, Amy Hershberger, used her own truck with a plow attached to the front to clear her street and cul-de-sac.

"We have some very resourceful people in our communities," Hull said. "If ever an award were given out for helping your community, Amy Hershberger [deserves it]."

In West Laurel, residents are using snow blowers and shovels to clear not just their own driveways, but the streets as well, said Elizabeth Evans, who is a board member for the West Laurel Civic Association.

Evans said her neighborhood had only been plowed once — on Wednesday — since the weekend blizzard began.

"They're being very creative on how to get their streets plowed," she said. "Just about every able-bodied man is out shoveling the road."

County Council Chairman Thomas E. Dernoga (D-Dist. 1) of Laurel said he knew of a group of Beltsville residents who were pooling money to pay a private snow removal company, but he declined to provide further details on the group's location.

Dernoga said he does not know whether it's legal for neighbors to pay for their own plowing but he doubts residents would be prohibited from doing so.

"If someone said, ‘Hey, you don't need to do my street, I've already taken care of it,' I don't think the county would argue with them," Dernoga said.

Garold Stone, who leads a coalition of community groups in South Laurel, said there was some talk of hiring a snow plow in his area, but the idea was only a passing thought.

"I imagine it would have been hard to find a plow to hire at the last minute," Stone said.

Snowman LLC, a snow removal company based in Laurel, has received hundreds of requests for service this winter. But Snowman receptionist Mary Lee Smith said the recent snowfall has overwhelmed the company's eight workers. She said Snowman is no longer responding to requests beyond the townhouses and commercial properties it has already contracted with.

"I hate to turn [callers] away, but the contracts that we have are more important at this time," Smith said.

Beltsville Citizens Association President Karen Coakley said she has received numerous complaints about a lack of public works crews in the area, and isn't surprised that residents would be ready to take things into their own hands.

"It wouldn't surprise me, based on the e-mails and the calls I've had," Coakley said. "If the [county] plows were out there, they weren't in the Beltsville area."

In Greenbelt, Belle Point Homeowners Association Vice President Germaine Timmermans said the association has exceeded its snow budget of $2,000, though the streets are still covered and no one has been through to plow since Monday.

"We just switched to a new contractor in December, and there has been a bit of a learning curve, but during the last snowstorm everyone seemed pretty happy," said Timmermans, who added snow removal can be challenging.

Belle Point residents eager to get out of the house have been shoveling since last night, despite the ongoing snow, Timmermans said.

Matt Berres, maintenance department manager for Greenbelt Homes Inc., wrote in an e-mail that GHI ran plow crews almost nonstop since the storm began. Although all the streets in GHI had been cleared twice early Saturday morning, his crews had to stop for safety reasons.

"The volume of the snow, extremely icy roads, and near blizzard conditions on Friday and early Saturday a.m. made keeping up with the storm impossible," Berres wrote. The crews were back clearing the streets on Sunday morning.