Media Contacts
Mafara Hobson, (202) 727-2807
John Lisle, (202) 486-5838
(Washington, DC) – Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, DDOT Director Gabe Klein, and DPW Director William O. Howland, Jr., announced that snow crews are in the midst of a full scale effort to remove snow from local streets that are still not passable, starting with streets that have not been plowed. Crews are using more than 100 pieces of supplemental equipment to remove snow from smaller residential areas that have proved challenging for the larger plows used to clear arterials and larger residential roads. Trash will be collected today from the front of those homes with a Friday collection day. Residents are asked to place their trash in dark colored plastic (not paper) bags and place the bags at the curb for collection. No recycling will be collected Friday.
The snow emergency remains in effect in the District, and temporary lanes closures on major routes and bridges may occur throughout the day as hauling operations are underway.
“Since yesterday, we’ve been focusing most of our efforts on the residential streets,” said Mayor Fenty. “In addition to our 270 plus plows and other equipment, we’re now working with more than 100 pieces of construction equipment, including Bobcats, front-end loaders, backhoes, dump trucks and rolloffs to remove snow from all local streets to get as many people to work and wherever else they need to go today.”
The specialized equipment will do the best job to help break up and remove up to several feet of snow that has been packed on many local streets since last week’s storm, officials say. Plows also continue to salt streets to help melt the remaining snow.
The District is hauling approximately 85 loads of snow per day onto the campus of DC General Hospital in southeast. Snow is hauled mostly in rolloffs, also called dumpsters, which have a capacity to hold 20-25 tons of snow, and dump trucks, which can hold up to six tons. Nearly 1,000 tons of salt also are being trucked to the District daily.
“Between the specialized equipment, the salt and the several days of sun and warmer temperatures forecasted over the next several days, we think we will be able to return to some level of normalcy,” said DDOT Director Gabe Klein. “We’re coming into the home stretch now. We owe our snow team a debt of gratitude for getting us there and we thank our residents for their patience and support.”
“Snowmaggedon ‘10” not only will be known for dumping record amounts of snow across the mid-Atlantic region, but also for bringing citizens together in celebration of one of Mother Nature’s rarer moments – an historic snowfall. In snow-laden neighborhoods across the city, residents competed to build the most fantastic snow people, threw sidewalk shoveling parties and hosted corner “Happy Hours”. But perhaps most memorable were the random acts of kindness displayed by many citizens.
“I’ve traveled just about every mile of the District since snow began falling last Friday and the kindness and generosity of strangers I’ve witnessed has been incredible,” said DPW Director Howland. “Neighbors organized volunteer corps to shovel sidewalks for those who could not. I’ve seen strangers offer each other a jump when a car battery wouldn’t start a car, and everywhere our snow crews went people offered words of encouragement.”
That generosity has been reciprocated by the Snow Team as well. During the height of the blizzard on Wednesday, a snow employee provided assistance to an elderly woman who had fallen in the snow. The employee then walked the resident home before returning to duty.