ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 17, 1996 TAG: 9601170074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
Responding to criticism of Roanoke's snow-clearing efforts last week, city administrators told City Council on Tuesday that they will begin planning today how to keep roads clearer in the next major snowstorm.
The snow-clearing operation will cost taxpayers an estimated $400,000, only part of which may be made up by federal disaster relief.
``We didn't do everything right; that's obviously true," Public Works Director William Clark told council in a recap of plowing and emergency efforts during the near-blizzard that dumped 2 feet of snow on Western Virginia on Jan. 6 and 7.
``But certainly the effort was there,'' Clark added.
The city has received both praise and criticism for the job it did plowing streets after the storm.
Many of the complaints were about the condition of major roads, such as U.S. 221 and U.S. 460, last Tuesday. Heading toward Roanoke, both were clear until the city line, where they were snow-covered but passable.
Perhaps the most stinging blow came Monday, when listeners to radio station WFIR gave the city an F for its snow-removal efforts, while the Virginia Department of Transportation got A's and B's for its work in outlying jurisdictions.
City Council members, however, heaped praise on the city's snow-clearing efforts and appeared to take offense at the criticism.
``No one can demean the importance of the administrators, staff and workers who put in countless number of hours of work,'' Councilman Mac McCadden said. ``Everybody could gripe and say, `They should have done this' and `They should have done that.' Well, why didn't they get out and do it?''
Teachers at Westside Elementary School ``took great umbrage at the grade the city got in the paper,'' said Councilwoman Linda Wyatt, who teaches at the school. She was refering to an article in Tuesday's Roanoke Times that reported the radio station's call-in results. ``They wanted me to bring to you their great appreciation of your snow-clearing efforts.''
City Manager Bob Herbert said the city did some things right in the storm, such as establishing a shelter, taking medicine to people who were snowbound, getting dialysis patients to their treatments, and establishing hot lines for people to get in touch with city government.
But ``there were some things we could have done better,'' he said.
Herbert said part of the problem was image. The city looked bad because its primary roads weren't as clean as the county's.
In the future, the city may focus on getting main roads cleaner earlier, he told council.
Another mistake, Clark conceded, was an overly optimistic estimate the city issued Jan. 9, when it said 85 percent of all city streets had been plowed at least once. Many people looking out their windows just didn't believe that.
``We were never able to recoup from the expectation that had been created,'' Clark said.
Herbert said early snow-clearing efforts were hampered when trucks had to be diverted from plowing to clearing roads for ambulances and fire trucks.
Even some of the plows got stuck, he said. At one point, 15 pieces of city equipment were mired in snow and had to be dug or towed out, Herbert said.
Plows also were blocked by parked cars on narrow residential streets. In future snowstorms, the city may restrict parking to only one side of a street, Herbert said.
The snow removal consumed 10,000 hours of city workers' time - the equivalent of five people working full time for a year. Snow-clearing crews got their first breaks Tuesday from more than a week of 12-hour days.
By the time all the bills are in, snow removal after the storm is likely to cost Roanoke taxpayers $400,000 for overtime, equipment and supplies, Herbert said. The city may get a small portion of that - probably less than $100,000 - in federal disaster relief.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB