Whether we want to admit it or not winter is coming. We’ve been very lucky with the Indian summer that we have had so far. Mother Nature has outdone herself this year with the beautifully colored trees that are in full display. Unfortunately, though, cool nights and nice days will eventually lead to cold winds, subzero nights, and SNOW. The older I get the more I dislike snow and colder temperatures but it is a part of living in Nebraska.
With the oncoming of winter, it is always a good thing to become familiar with City Resolution 6582 which designates and lists all Snow Emergency Routes and Snow Priority Routes. Snow emergency routes are streets such as highways, streets with the highest volume of traffic, streets that lead to utilities, and areas around the hospital. Snow priority routes are streets that lead to the industrial park, streets with high volume of traffic, areas around schools, and the truck route. All emergency and priority route streets have signs along them declaring them as such. During times of severe winter events, the City Administrator can declare a Snow Emergency. When a Snow Emergency has been declared parking is prohibited along all snow emergency routes between midnight and 7:00 a.m.
These snow emergency routes and priority routes are just that. These routes are the first to be plowed and are the only streets in town that are treated with salt or other deicing material. During a storm, plows will remain on these streets throughout the duration of the storm until the streets have been plowed clean and treated.
Residential streets throughout the city are only plowed if more than 2 inches of snow has fallen across the entire city. Areas with stop signs have the stopping area in front of them salted once snow emergency and priority routes have been completed. Once we commit to plowing residential streets each street will be plowed once. Depending on the severity of the storm it generally takes approximately 6 to 8 hours to plow all residential streets in the city. Again, residential streets are plowed only after the emergency and priority routes have been completed and the city has received more than 2 inches of snow.
Once again, we will use a deicing material by the name of Apex Meltdown. We have used this liquid pretreatment material over the last few years and have seen great results. This material is sprayed onto the surface of high-volume streets and allowed to be tracked across the surface before a storm. Once precipitation activates the material it works by slowing the bonding of snow and ice to the surface. This delay in freezing reduces the number of man-hours needed to remove the snow or ice from the roadway. This material is also applied to our rock salt supplies. By applying this material to our salt, we can lower the melting point temperature of rock salt from mid-20s to low single digits.
Snow in the downtown district is plowed to the center of the streets into ridges. The downtown area consists of areas from 2nd Street to 10th Street and from Market Street to Ella Street. A small section of 4th and 5th from Ella to High Street are also included in this area due to the Middle School. Once this snow has been ridged in the center of the street, we generally try to give businesses 24 hours to clean their sidewalks before the streets are plowed once more and we remove the ridges with our snow blower. This snow is stockpiled at the 1st and Ella area near West Court Street Bridge.
When a Snow Emergency is declared, the local media is notified. The City will also announce the Snow Emergency via our website, social media channels, and our direct notification system. If you haven’t signed up to receive direct notifications, you can register on our website or contact the City Hall to enroll.
Jason Moore
Street Superintendent