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City still cleaning up with more snow coming

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Also by Pratha Muthiah:

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UW hosts Halloween festivities (October 31, 2007)
UW holds Union South alternative to State Street festivities (October 29, 2007)

by Pratha Muthiah

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

While Madison recovers from the snow and ice storm that hit Saturday, more snow is on the way tonight.

According to Madison Streets Superintendent Al Schumacher, the city has been doing as much as possible to keep the roads safe and ready for use.

Thirty contracted vehicles salted, plowed and sanded their way through the streets of Madison throughout Saturday, according to Schumacher. A couple of vehicles helped emergency vehicles get through the snow.

Although the storm was over Saturday night, there was plenty left to clean up Sunday and Monday.

"We don't usually salt every street — usually just main streets and bus routes," Schumacher said. "And we did little in the residential areas on Saturday. But we went through and salted [Monday] and tried to break up some more of that ice in the residential areas."

Schumacher also said that the city replowed some areas Monday.

"We replowed most of the residential areas, cleaned up the corners and tried to fix some turn lanes as well as some of the narrower streets," Schumacher said.

The Madison Police Department kept busy Saturday as well.

"We eventually went down to emergency calls only," said MPD Public Information Officer Joel DeSpain. "And although it's crude, we had a bit of a 'blood and blockage' policy when it came down to it."

According to MPD Captain Tom Snyder, there was a minimal number of crashes.

"Initially, when it started snowing on Saturday, there were a lot of fender benders," Snyder said. "They were minor accidents. We took on the 'blood and blockage' policy later on Saturday when it just got too busy. People had to file their own accident reports."

MPD was very busy giving out citations this weekend as well, according to DeSpain.

"We had some problems getting the side streets clear," DeSpain said. "We wrote 437 $30 citations on Saturday and 429 on Sunday — all to people who are supposed to clear their cars off the street in the event of a snowstorm emergency."

Other than the citations and accidents, the snowstorm recovery within Madison went smoothly.

According to Schumacher, the only issue to face now is how much the weekend cost the city.

"A normal storm will cost about $300,000," Schumacher said. "We fully anticipate this to cost more than that, just because of the ice buildup and all the extra work associated with that."

The city has the cost of five big snowstorms per calendar year built into the budget. This storm was the fifth for 2007, according to Schumacher.

"We had a pretty bad winter earlier this year in January and February," Schumacher said. "It doesn't matter though. If it snows, we will be out there cleaning it up, and we will find additional funding if necessary."

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Anonymous (December 4, 2007 @ 7:28pm):

"Other than the citations and accidents, the snowstorm recovery within Madison went smoothly."

That's a joke... right?

Accidents don't equate to the recovery not going smoothly?

How about the singular ice sheet all along Langdon?

Anonymous (December 4, 2007 @ 11:51pm):

This city's snow control is a joke. If you want to reduce accidents you cant wait until it stops snowing to start plowing, especially not when you expect signifigant inches to fall. I understand it costs money, but this is Wisconsin and snow happens, and it happens frequently. There is no excuse for the poor job done every winter.

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