Decatur Purchases “Plow” and Makes Tweaks to Procedure in Anticipation of Another Major Snow/Ice Event
Decatur Metro | January 6, 2012After seeing an article in this week’s Champion newspaper detailing DeKalb County’s prep for another winter storm like last years, I asked City Manager Peggy Merriss what, if any, steps Decatur had taken to prepare for another potential 50 year winter weather event this year. She was good enough to provide us with this detailed account.
As described in The Champion article, our public works staff have been participating with other municipalities, DeKalb County and the Georgia Department of Transportation to develop a better system of coordinated communications during extreme weather events. This will be most helpful in making sure that the roadways that are cleared connect to other roadways in other jurisdictions as well as coordinating the delivery of additional materials and supplies.
We are purchasing an interchangeable blade implement that can be attached to the City’s backhoe to be used as a snow “plow” to clean major thoroughfares. In addition, the blade can be used year round to scrape and maintain other surfaces, such as unpaved roads. It will cost about $4,000.
We have stocked our typical supply of materials such as sand and de-icer.
We have modified our call-in policy to require all of our sanitation collection staff who are able report to work, even if we are not collecting garbage, in order to have more available workers.
We plan on opening Ebster Recreation Center as a drop-in facility if schools are otherwise closed.
Overall, our response last year was consistent with the City’s weather response plan and if we have a similar convergence of the same conditions in the future, residents should be prepared to comfortably stay at home for 3-5 days. Ultimately, what remains as the most effective plan of attack for removing ice and snow are sunny and slightly windy, above 32° days.
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During last year’s “Snowmageddon,” after several days of literally no traffic in downtown Decatur, and no attempt to even clear any of the streets I emailed the City to ask what the plan was for getting us out of this mess, and their response was, “Well, we’re just going to let nature take it’s course and we are so fortunate it wasn’t any worse.”
So, if Peggy Merriss’s description of Decatur’s “weather response plane” is correct (“our response last year was consistent with the City’s weather response plan”), I guess we can expect more of the same, or nothing to happen and just let “nature do it’s thing”.
Meanwhile, other cities in the Atlanta area were actually pro-active about the situation and had plows and trucks out the night the snow started, and their city didn’t not suffer the week-long paralyzation that Decatur did. I don’t own a business in downtown Decatur, but if I did, I would be furious at the City’s response to this event.
Who sent the email?
This plan sounds proactive to me, whatever one thinks of last year. The “interchangeable blade element” seems like a fairly cheap and ingenious investment. Sand sounds like a good thing to stock up on but it may interfere with my own preparations–I bought new ski poles to replace the ones I bent on the hard ice last year. Cross-country skiing is the abolute best way to get around Decatur in the snow. Walk, roll, and glide! Sand will ruin the course.
I was not happy with Decatur’s response to last years storm. The city was unprepared IHMO. I do not expect the kind of action that would be expected in a locale where such a storm is not a rare occurrence, but what we got was disappointing.
One? plow blade is better than none, but that is not adequate. When such a storm hits, at least three or four such equipped vehicles would need to be deployed immediately to start clearing the snow…. before it is compacted into ice. In the case of last years storm, that means they should be out there at 2AM clearing the roads with multiple plows… not the middle of the next day with one plow trying to scrape ice off the roadway.
How much money has the fire dept. been funded with to prepare for a hazmat spill? I guarantee it is more than 4k. While perhaps it is not as life threatening, a storm like last years (although rare… like hazmat spills) is an incredible disruption of schools and businesses…. and very expensive.
But let’s be honest, it was not just the city that was caught flat footed. I saw a lot of businesses that made little effort to clear the snow/ice from the sidewalks in front of their properties. The same for some of the condo buildings and apartment complexes. And to top it off, very few of our citizens even bothered to clear the sidewalks in front of their own homes. If you can’t go to work, for goodness sakes…. put on a coat and gloves… get off your keister… and make your little part of the city safe for walkers!
End of rant. And yes, I love Decatur!
Definitely agree that everyone needs to clear their own sidewalks (excepting of course the elderly and physically-challenged whose good neighbors will jump in and help.) It surprises me every time it snows when people don’t take a few minutes and run out and clear the sidewalk before it turns to slush and ice – much easier when it’s still fluffy. But I grew up in the North.
Thanks for the reminder, though – I meant to go buy a real snow shovel this year instead of scraping by with a garden shovel. Again.
Sorry for the triple post. Bob
The response last year definitely left somthing to be desired, but I am glad the city didn’t overreact and go out and spend hundreds of thousands on new equipment. Given the rarity of that storm, half of that shiny new equipment would probably fall into disrepair (unless we spend alot of money maintaining it) before we need it again. We had 5 snow days in one week last year, and probably the same number in the prior 5 years. It is rare in Georgia for everything to be closed up for 2 consecutive days, not to mention a whole week.
I have a question. Is the city even allowed to scrape the state highways that run through Decatur? It doesn’t seem to be able to do anything else to them.
Bob, it appears that the city only has 1 backhoe (based on the singular “backhoe” in the city’s response). More blades won’t do a lot of good without equipment to attach them to.
Good points. A snow event of that magnitude is pretty rare, and becoming rarer. When something like that happens we all should just relax and enjoy nature.
I’m not advocating spending a lot of money on snow removal equipment that won’t be used very much. What I am advocating is being proactive like some of the other cities in the Metro area did. I can’t remember the specific suburb, but they saw the weather forecasts, they new it was going to be bad, and they went out and contracted with several companies that did have the proper equipment. As soon as the snow started falling, they we’re out – at night – keeping ahead of the storm. As soon the storm ended, that city had nice clear roads for the rest of the week. This was well reported on the local news stations. Meanwhile, back in Decatur, we just sat around and watched the pretty snow come down, watched it freeze over into solid sheets of ice making it much more difficult to remove, and when the City was asked what the “Grand Plan” for getting the roads cleared so businesses could open up and people could get to work, the answer was, “Oh, we”ll just let nature do it’s thing – weren’t we so lucky it wasn’t worse?.” That is not being proactive, and I don’t think buying a blade Implement is very proactive either, and will not be very effective if we have a repeat of last year’s type storm.
A plow blade for the backhoe would certainly be welcome, but I would suggest the city look into removable plows for standard pickup trucks. These are used throughout the north by private contractors for clearing parking lots of businesses. Given our infrequent and small snowfalls, I would think multiple trucks with plows would be the way to go.
An inexpensive addition to the snow response plan would be a public education campaign/materials, prepped and ready to be distributed prior to each potential snow event. As is mentioned above and frequently during last year’s snow-in, many business owners and residents just don’t know how to respond to snow on the micro-level. A bullet point memo directed towards businesses and residents highlighting the benefits of timely shoveling/salting/sanding, and post-shovel maintenance might really help the town be more mobile next time, at least on foot. The memo could also outline ways neighbors might be able to collaborate on shoveling a tire path for small side streets (my neighbor started that last time, and it worked great), or other ideas my west-coast self doesn’t know. The memo could be distributed through DM, Patch, DBA and neighborhood listserves, Facebook, etc.
I’m for enjoying nature during one of these beautiful snow events, but it is much easier to enjoy it outside if sidewalks are somewhat passable!
The DBA could join in the public education efforts and have a campaign for every business to purchase and have at the ready a snow shovel or two, plus a list of store-owners that for health reasons would need assistance shoveling their areas of sidewalk.
This is all very good stuff, and would be helpful across the metro area. My big whine is always about how the local news & weather coverage chooses sensationalism over actual information that would be useful. If they chose to, they could do a lot to encourage people to use common sense and behave responsibly. Maybe Decatur could lead the public educ effort and also get it deemed newsworthy somehow and get it on local TV.
I’d have to look it up, but I seem to recall that it is already a requirement for residents (and businesses) to insure their walkways are clear. Most people probably don’t know that, so an education program of some sort would probably be good (if it is actually true).
I was speaking more of the roads and such that the City apparently does not seem to think that anything more than “Nature” and a blade is needed. This is not being proactive, and I’m sure our Downtown business suffered.