This is an update of our efforts to manage the snow storm impact on Janesville’s streets. This has been a particularly difficult winter storm to deal with because of a number of factors including:
1.Significant snowfall volume continued with little slowdown over night and all morning
2.Very high velocity winds which have been sustained for several hours
3.Dramatically dropping temperatures
Our salt crews were dispatched at 5pm Saturday afternoon working continously since that time. They were joined by the full plow crew at 3am this morning. Efforts have been primarily maintained on the arterial streets with occasional and very limited movement into the residential streets. We have not been able to leave the arterials for very long as the continously falling and drifting snow has been quickly recovering the arterials. We’ve been making every effort to avoid the development of hardpacked snow on the arterials.
Shortly before noon we are finally beginning to see the snowfall rates diminish, although we expect traces to continue to fall until this evening. The wind speeds, though slighly reduced, are still strong. At this time we are planning to make one more pass on the arterials and then move, early this afternoon, into the residential streets. We are concerned that our progress on the residential streets will be slowed by the fact that the intial snowfall last evening was a heavy wet snow which fell on rain soaked streets. That snow has likley hardened due to the falling temperatures and been covered by several inches of dry and drifting snow. That base may not peel off well, so we will likely be left with hard pack even after the lighter snow has been pushed back. When we complete the residentials we will need to make another pass of the arterial streets due to continued drifting. We will not likely be completed until late tonight.
Due to the extremely cold temperatures projected for the next few days, we expect the condition of our residential streets to remain in difficult winter driving condition for the forseeable future. Janesville residents will need to take extra time and care when traveling about this week. Any warmup, although desireable, can be expected to loosent the hardpacked snow which may then be rutted by traffic.
I believe John Whitcomb, our Operations Supeervisors and our drivers have been making a commendable effort. I hope that our residents will be patient and understanding as we make our best efforts to return the streets to reasonable winter driving conditions.