Wyandotte County officials say plowing will be smoother this week than after blizzard

Crews in Wyandotte County are expecting an easier time plowing the expected snow this week as the metro braces for a second winter storm.

The National Weather Service has placed the entire Kansas City region under a winter storm warning starting at midnight on Wednesday, alongside northern Missouri, northern Kansas, much of Iowa and parts of Nebraska and Illinois. The forecast predicts up to 7 inches of snow, and travel could become difficult.

After the January blizzard, which dumped the most snow on Kansas City at one time in several decades, snow plow crews in Kansas City, Kansas, faced complications from the heavy snow and icy conditions on the roads, prompting resident complaints about the removal progress.

But in contrast with the January blizzard, when rain left a layer of ice on roads ahead of the snowfall and wreaked havoc on area highways, KCK is not expecting ice with Wednesday’s storm.

“The snow is expected to be dry and fluffy, which makes it much easier to plow,” said Dave Reno, public information officer with the public works department for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and KCK.

Unified Government crews have pre-treated bridges, overpasses and hills with salt brine ahead of the storm starting on Monday. Reno said only those areas were pre-treated in order to conserve resources, as ice is not in the forecast.

Crews will instead jump right into plowing in the early morning on Wednesday. They spent Tuesday double-checking vehicles and loading trucks with salt before planning to start plow operations at 3 a.m. on Wednesday.

Teams will work in 12-hour shifts, and plows will be on the roads for 24 hours. Crews will first plow high-traffic “hot routes,” followed by secondary routes that connect neighborhoods to hot routes and then residential neighborhood routes.

The public works department has 48 dump trucks with snowplows and salt spreaders, nine pickup trucks with plows, six loaders and one grader. The first shift will use 26 plows while the second shift will use 31 plows.

After hot and secondary routes are cleared, crews will treat them with salt before moving onto neighborhood side streets. The salt will serve as treatment on the roads ahead of possible rain and snow on Saturday, which could bring ice.

There will be 57 crew members working to clear the Wednesday snow. Reno said the street maintenance team has about 10 vacancies and is always looking for new workers to join.

While conditions can change during operations, Reno said as a general rule it takes crews 12 to 24 hours after snow stops falling to plow and treat hot and secondary routes, while neighborhood routes generally take 48 hours.

Services like trash and recycling pick-up are not expected to be impacted at this time. Residents can check for updates about the snow removal operations at wycokck.org.