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Enough already.
That seems to be the general feeling by most as more snow was expected for New Year’s Day. And even more this weekend.
Still, city of Spokane Valley and Spokane County officials spent most of the holidays trying to keep snowplows on task, going as far to declare “snow emergencies” in order to secure additional assistance in clearing roadways.
The city of Spokane Valley was actually the first to declare an emergency. The City Council was supposed to take Dec. 23 off, but briefly met to pass Mayor Richard Munson’s resolution. While the mayor said snowplow crews were doing a “marvelous job” in dealing with the white stuff – which has fallen off and on consistently for nearly three weeks – it was time to go a step further.
“We hope this declaration will provide some assistance,” Munson stated.
Spokane County – which is contracted by the city for snow removal until Oct. 15, 2009 – was operating on a business-as-usual basis up through last week. On Christmas Eve, the commissioners met to discuss the situation as another 18 inches of snow was predicted to fall on top of the 40 or so that were already on the ground.
But the board ultimately waited until Saturday to make their own state-of-emergency declaration. That came after Bob Brueggeman, county engineer, reported severe blowing and drifting snow in the southeast portion of the county and crews being unable to keep up with workload.
By declaring a state of emergency, the city and county now have the authority to hire private contractors to assist with snow removal without going through a time-consuming bid process.
Since Dec. 17, Spokane County has spent about $70,000 each day as plows operate around the clock in 12-hour shifts. Munson said Monday he was unsure how much the city had spent, but figured it was likely the $500,000 the city had set aside in reserve for contract work outside the county’s services would probably be gone before too long.
“We had 18 (private crews) out on the road over the weekend,” Munson said Monday as the latest storm dumped another 12 inches on the ground on the valley floor. “They just got done. Now they’ll have to start over again.”
After Monday’s latest go-around with snowfall, county plow crews returned to the primary arterials.
In other snow-related news, county officials had to deal Monday with the news that a portion of the Spokane County Fair & Expo Center’s Agriculture collapsed last Friday while another section was showing signs of “serious stress-loading,” according to Martha Lou Wheatley-Billeter, county spokeswoman.
It was just one instance of several area roof collapses, mostly to businesses or other structures with flatter roofs. In general, most residential roofs are designed handle twice the load already received. Professional roofers should be contacted to do the snow removal.
County residents are reminded that shoveling or snow-blowing snow into a road or street is against the law, Wheatley-Billeter said. It’s also a good idea to dig out the area around fire hydrants.
For more information on snowplowing, check the county’s Web site at www.spokanecounty.org/data/engineers.
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By
Mike Huffman
