Winter is upon us and snow is just around the corner, if not already here. So put your long-johns on, grab your shovels and get the hot chocolate ready.  Every snow season, the city receives many calls from folks asking when their streets are going to be plowed. After all, we all need to go to work, to school, doctor’s appointments and so on. The city has pretty much plowed snow the same way for many years and there are reasons for how it is done.

To begin with, there is an employee who works nights during the winter months. If it begins to snow during the night, he’ll start plowing and salting. If it continues to snow, he may call up other employees. If the night man is not available, our police department determines whether, or not the DPW needs to respond before the normal time of 7:00 A.M. (Mondays through Fridays). It takes 3 plow trucks approximately 8 hours to make all of the streets in town passable so that vehicles could drive on them. The next day, or two is spent pushing the snow back out of the gutter pan on to the right of way in front of the sidewalk.

The streets inside our city are classified as major or minor, depending on the amount of traffic carried and their design. Mason currently has about 11.5 miles of major streets and 16.7 miles of minor streets, totaling 28.2 miles. Immediately following a snow storm, a snow plow will make two passes down the center of the street to open it up and then two more passes to further push the snow to the outside edge of the street. In other words, to even make the streets passable, about 113 miles of plowing needs to be done.

 
The city’s priority is to open the major streets first, due to possible safety issues (fire, police and ambulance) and the amount of traffic that travels them. Once they are passable, the minor streets are plowed, then alleys. Dead end streets and cu-de-sacs are near the end of the list because they are not “through streets”. The shape of a cul-de-sac makes it even more difficult to plow snow where it will not be in the way. As you have probably noticed, when there is a lot of snow, we will push it into a pile in the center of the cul-de-sac for future removal. It should be noted that in the event of an emergency, our department would be immediately contacted by emergency personnel to plow the street ahead of them.

As you may realize, when we have blizzards like the ones in December 2000, it takes us longer and uses all of our available resources. The severity of the storm affects our operations and how quickly we can respond. Ice, continued falling and blowing snow, emergencies with utilities, and mechanical problems with the equipment affects how long the plowing will take. If it continues snowing, we concentrate on keeping the major streets open.

The City of Mason makes every attempt to clear the streets during a snow storm as quickly as possible. We do understand most of the concerns of our residents and all of our employees are dedicated to doing the best job possible under weather conditions that are some times hazardous. So please be patient, the snow plows will be there to push the snow into your driveway entrances (an unwanted, but necessary inconvenience).