ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 11, 1996 TAG: 9601110114
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER AND CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITERS
NOTE: Above
You spent hours digging out your car. Your back is sore, your arms feel like spaghetti.
After four or five days, you finally escaped the house, negotiating still-choppy roads, dodging icy spots. And, miracle of miracles, you found a place to park.
Now you find out it's supposed to do what again Thursday night?
That's right. Western Virginia could be looking at another 6 to 12 inches of snow by Friday afternoon, according to Mike Emlaw, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg.
Road crews throughout the Roanoke Valley have been working around the clock since Saturday, and most primary and secondary routes should be passable by this morning - just in time for the "Near Blizzard of 1996, Part 2."
Predictions call for snow to start falling tonight, and in lower elevations - southeast of the Blue Ridge, including parts of Roanoke and Bedford counties and the Smith Mountain Lake area - it could be mixed with freezing rain and sleet.
The good and bad news is the snow will be wetter and heavier, Emlaw said. The wind won't blow it back over places already dug out, but each shovelful will weigh more. B In case we've forgotten our lessons from the 1993 ice storm, when freezing rain ripped down power lines and pitched our warm cozy homes into darkness and cold, the Department of Emergency Services urged Virginians to stock up on food, fuel and other provisions. And make room for the garbage. Crews won't start collecting until next week.
Temperatures are supposed to start warming up, reaching 40 degrees early next week, but continuing to dip below freezing at night. This would help prevent a massive meltdown, which could lead to flooding.
But the freeze-and-thaw routine won't give road crews a break. For city plow drivers Dean Spangler and Michael Craighead, the past few days have been like a tennis match. They push snow off the streets, and residents shoveling out cars and driveways throw it back out there. Back and forth - "and we're losing," Craighead said.
Still, the city is gaining ground. Virtually all 1,100 lane-miles of city streets have been plowed at least once, probably more, except some dead-end streets, Public Works Director Bill Clark said.
The city's snowplowing strategists plan their attack well before the first flake falls, Clark said. Main roads like Orange Avenue, Williamson Road and Peters Creek Road get cleared first, then crews move to bus routes and connecting roads, like Grandview and Overland, and finally into residential areas.
That's where plow drivers sometimes feel like they're on the front lines, when folks start getting cabin fever, and a touch unpleasant.
"We've had people threaten us, cuss us out, everything," Spangler said as he grabbed a turkey and gravy lunch set up for city workers at the Civic Center Wednesday.
"I've had to roll the windows up and keep going," added Craighead. Sometimes, folks walking in the street don't get out of the way, and the crews have to drive around them.
And sometimes animals don't get out of the way. Spangler was approaching a dog in the street the other day, but the dog didn't move. Spangler said he slowed down and, figuring the dog had jumped out of the way, kept going.
Looking in his rear-view mirror, Spangler said, "I seen the dog climbing out of the snowbank shaking himself off."
One complaint has been that city roads still have more slush and ice than county roads. Craighead said city plows have rubber-edged blades to keep from ripping up manhole covers, but they don't scrape ice as well as steel blades, which the Virginia Department of Transportation uses in the county.
The town of Vinton, which maintains its own roads, has most roads "down to the bare pavement," said town public works director Cecil Stacy. Road crews there are prepared to work in 12-hour shifts again if it snows tonight.
Vinton resident Diane Childress called to compliment her town's cleanup. She said she could tell a difference between Vinton's and Roanoke's streets because Valley Metro buses were able to travel streets better in Vinton than downtown.
Valley Metro, which shut down Monday, reopened Tuesday and Wednesday on snow routes, though its schedules were delayed by 30 minutes on some trips. The buses may stay on snow routes for the rest of the week, depending on the weather.
The biggest problems buses and snowplows had "was not street conditions but all the parked cars in the street or stuck motorists in the road," Valley Metro General Manager Stephen Mancuso said.
Overall there have been fewer riders this week, Mancuso said, though many people who usually drive are taking the bus and leaving their cars at home. "We call them our foul-weather friends and we love them dearly," he said.
The weather didn't stop many suburban commuters, however. Even though four-wheel drive vehicles have ruled the roads for days, Toyotas and Plymouths started reappearing Wednesday.
Some private parking lots have been cleared of snow, but they're full of cars, said Tim Milliron, city manager for Allright Parking. Other lots haven't been cleared yet because there were not enough plows to go around.
In Roanoke and Botetourt counties, about 70 percent of roads have been cleared, according to VDOT resident engineer Jeff Echols.
Most of what's left includes cul-de-sacs and hard-to-reach rural areas. There's a good chance VDOT plows will be able to reach those neighborhoods before more snow falls, he said.
Bill Manning, assistant resident engineer, said pushing the tons of snow has broken some equipment slowing the work even more as repairs are made.
But locally, VDOT has 15 fewer workers this year, because of employee buyouts by the Allen administration. "That's had some impact," Echols said. "We've basically signed up a lot of outside contractors."
There are others waiting in line for those services, however, Echols said. VDOT had to compete with shopping centers and private companies who had dibs on the contractors.
Roanoke and Salem officials tried to use private plows also, but found none available and are managing with their own equipment and employees.
If it snows tonight, Echols said, VDOT will clear roads in the same order - interstates like I-581 and primary roads like U.S. 11 and Virginia 419 will be first, followed by secondary roads and subdivisions.
However, if some roads weren't plowed before today, those roads may be cleared early on, he said.
Meanwhile, local businesses prepared for the next few tons of snow to fall.
Sam's Club on Town Square Boulevard closed for two hours Wednesday and scooted their much-missed customers out while snow was cleared from the roof.
General Manager Charlie Wagner said the building was not having structural problems; the closure was simply preventive maintenance.
People weren't taking any chances this time when it came to being well-stocked with provisions.
Wednesday night, the Kroger at Cave Spring Corners looked like a toy store the week before Christmas. Every checkout lane was open, but the lines still extended to the rear of the store and most carts were full.
Customers at the Spartan Square Kroger in Salem waited about 10 minutes to get a cart to begin shopping the near-empty shelves Wednesday evening.
One man said customers without carts were following people with carts to their cars.
Shoppers had picked several shelves clean. Not one loaf of regular bread was left, nor were there any eggs in the dairy case. A few cartons of whole milk were left, but the low-fat and skim were long gone.
Staff writers Lisa K. Garcia and Jan Vertefeuille contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 136 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB