Most Wyandotte County roads still aren’t plowed. Officials say they lack ‘super powers’
As area crews continue clearing snow off the streets from the weekend blizzard, Dennis Smith said his block in central Kansas City, Kansas, has not been touched at all.
Smith, of the Riverview Neighborhood Association – surrounded by 7th Street, Minnesota Avenue, 12th Street and Central Avenue – said he can look out his window and see that some main routes were clear, but other stretches of roadway had not seen a plow a day after the snow stopped falling.
It’s not just his neighborhood.
By midday Monday, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, hadn’t plowed any neighborhood streets at all, according to Dave Reno, a spokesman for the Unified Government’s Public Works Department.
Its crews had been focused on finishing plowing its main thoroughfares, called “Hot Routes,” and were moving on to “Secondary Routes” that connect the main roads to neighborhoods. Reno said crews would get to residential streets after that.
As of 3 p.m. Monday, the Unified Government confirmed that about half of the “Secondary Routes” have been cleared.
Staffers are working around the clock in 12-hour shifts to clear the roadways, but their progress appears to lag behind that of nearby municipalities. The post-blizzard freeze has led to icy conditions, further complicating the already daunting task of clearing the roads.
“I don’t know what super powers some think snow removal teams have but 2 days of straight snow & ice isn’t going to disappear overnight,” the Unified Government posted on its official Facebook page Monday morning. “The snow may be done, but now we battle sub-freezing temps which poses another barrier to snow/ice removal.”
“No, your residential side streets likely haven’t been cleared yet, but we assure you we are working towards it,” the post continued.
Smaller staff, fewer trucks
Across the state line in Kansas City, Missouri, officials reported that as of Monday morning, “most neighborhoods are drivable, and most streets have been fully plowed.” Some residential streets still hadn’t been completely cleared, but the city is tracking its progress with a live snowplow map.
Kansas City is responsible for plowing the most lane miles in the metro at 6,400 and was equipped with 400 employees and 300 trucks to tackle the blizzard.
Reno said the Unified Government had 64 trucks in total deployed for the storm, guaranteeing that “with split shifts, a minimum of 24 dump trucks are on the street at all times” working to plow the 2,400 lane miles in the county.
Wyandotte County’s team working on this storm consisted of 57 people, Reno said. He has 10 vacant positions he’s looking to fill.
Nearby, Overland Park has fewer lane miles to plow — about 2,000 compared to Wyandotte County’s 2,400 — but had nearly three times as many staffers responding to the winter storm, at 170. A spokesperson for the Johnson County city said this is the first winter they’ve been fully staffed to tackle winter storms in recent years.
“Our crews are working tirelessly to ensure roads are safe for travel under these challenging conditions,” the Unified Government’s street maintenance manager Dewayne Smith said in a statement. “We’re plowing continuously, prioritizing routes that are critical for emergency services and residents’ daily needs. Please remember to give our teams space to work and to stay safe if you must be on the road.”
‘Really disturbed’
Several other residents told The Star that their Wyandotte County neighborhoods have not seen much plowing, either. One said even the plows seem to be having trouble and sent a grainy photo of a truck that appeared to be stuck in a snow bank.
Rev. C.L. Bachus, 81, who lives in downtown KCK close to Interstate 70, said this is the most snow he’s seen in his 53 years living in Kansas City. Yet, he has only seen a couple of snowplows in the surrounding neighborhoods.
From the second floor of his home, he can see Washington Boulevard, a road considered a “Hot Route” by the Unified Government. Yet he’s only seen one truck go through the area in the last couple of days.
The retired pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in northeast KCK said even in the days leading up to the storm, not enough people were talking about Wyandotte County’s preparation – or lack thereof.
“I was really disturbed when they were talking about preparing for this,” Bachus said. “The TV stations interviewed somebody in every community around here, other than Wyandotte County, when they talked about preparation.”
Edgar Galicia, the executive director of Central Avenue Betterment Association, said he’s been hearing from numerous residents concerned about the lack of plowing on residential and side streets in the county after the storm.
He said he’s been doing his best to be a bridge between some Spanish-speaking residents who are worried about the lack of service and the Unified Government by posting multilingual updates on social media.
Galicia was sympathetic to the Unified Government, saying it’s doing all it can with limited resources and pointing out that local government employees have to live in Wyandotte County by contract, so they too are experiencing the effects of the snowstorm.
“I have seen the actions of the (United Government) employees and their commitment,” he said.
Neighbors filling in the gaps
But more than complaints, Galicia said accounts of neighbors lending a hand to those in need and digging each other out of the snow have resonated with him.
“I’m very happy we haven’t lost touch with our neighbors, with our next-door friends and we’re helping each other,” he said.
Smith in Riverview said that some people have been able to get in and out of his neighborhood thanks to a neighbor with a truck who has tried to clear some paths.
He said he’s shocked that the Unified Government doesn’t have a better handle on the situation, adding that plows could have come as early as Saturday, “just to make a swipe.”
“I used to live in Missouri, and they would’ve been here already,” he said.
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 5:49 PM.