St. Louis is gearing up now for the winter storm season.
After a snow and ice storm made it extremely difficult to travel through the city last January, Mayor Cara Spencer laid out some of the city’s plans Thursday for when winter weather returns. They include:
- Using new trucks, including four smaller trucks, to plow streets. The small trucks purchased during Mayor Tishaura Jones’ administration could be used on some side streets.
- Bidding out for 9,000 tons of salt, which would bring the city’s stockpile up to about 15,000 tons. That would be more than the roughly 12,000 tons used during the January storm.
- Pretreating streets about 12 hours before a storm. There are some exceptions, including if the temperature is below 20 degrees – which could freeze the treatment solution.
- Boosting on-call pay to incentivize city employees with commercial driver’s licenses to sign up for snow removal shifts.
“We have a plan, we have better equipment, we have better protocols, and we have a team that's committed to getting out and being a part of the solution,” Spencer said.
The city’s press release stated that “first, all snow routes will be fully cleared in the drive lanes (arterials, secondaries, hill routes).” Then the city will plow accumulated snow at intersections where side streets meet main snow routes.
“Importantly, we'll have a contingency contract in place so that if we do exceed our impressive capacities that we have here as a city, that we can activate that for additional support to clear those snow routes and additional requirements,” said Ben Johnson, the city’s director of operations.
Side street clearance possible
The city historically hasn’t plowed side streets, especially since some of them are narrow and have cars parked on both sides of the street.
After a major winter storm in 2014, then-Streets Department Director Todd Waelterman conceded to reporters that plowing side streets would mean that city trucks would “hit a few cars” and “take some mirrors off of cars.”
Spencer said that she wouldn’t promise that all side streets would be plowed. But with the four smaller trucks, she said, “we are going to be relying on and working with the judgment of our street department, on a case-by-case basis, on how we're able to do that work.”
“You could have precipitation, and then it warms up before we even have that need,” Spencer said. “But again, I think the key here really is better prep, better incentives for our employees, a protocol and a commitment to communicating very clearly as we move through the winter months.”
Johnson also said that the city is planning a “salt bank” for neighborhood associations to use. While those groups won’t be able to get an unlimited amount of salt, he said it could be a way to help deal with a particularly severe winter storm.
“The idea here is that we know there are some great community organizations in particular that have expressed a desire to partner with the city and provide some additional salting in some of the neighborhoods for public safety,” Johnson said.
