With more snow threatening to create traffic hassles, KC digs out from winter storm
A day after a winter storm dumped up to 8 inches of snow in the metro area and a second wave of snow was threatening to push its way through, Kansas City was well on its way to digging itself out.
Most of the streets in downtown and the Crossroads Arts District appeared clear, though drivers still waded through slush.
Many of the main roadways through the city — The Paseo, Troost and Prospect avenues — were mostly cleared of snow, though some stalled cars that left the road on Bruce R. Watkins Drive remained there at noon Monday.
“I would say the major arterials are looking pretty good,” said Maggie Green, public information officer for Kansas City’s Public Works. “Some of them are completely cleared. Those that aren’t are getting another round today.”
Crews have been working around the clock since Sunday morning to clear the snow and were working Monday to clean up the city’s primary routes.
Many streets in residential neighborhoods were in worse shape, but passable. Most residential streets were packed with white snow in the neighborhoods, such as on the south and east sides of the city, where drivers slowly navigated the slick roads.
Work the streets went on as more snow fell in the Kansas City area. The additional snow could create headaches for the drivers during the evening rush hour, according to FOX4 meteorologist Karli Ritter, who provides weather updates to The Star.
The chance for snow was expected to increase as the afternoon unfolded, although accumulations were not going to be like Sunday’s.
The northern parts of the metro were expecting a dusting to an inch of additional snow. Areas south of Interstate 70 could see up to 3 inches of snow, Ritter said. Heavier snowfall totals were expected to trend further south.
And then, after the snow cleared out, temperatures were expected to tumble Monday night to about 10 degrees.
Clearing roads of snow
Depending on how much snow the city receives Monday, crews will be out overnight treating bridges, curves and hills on the arterial routes.
The battle to remove the snow began before the first flakes started flying Sunday morning. Kansas City crews were out pre-treating roads with salt brine days in advance of the storm.
“The salt brine — that started on Thursday and continued Friday and Saturday,” Green said. “We hit major roadways and bridges and then we have a list of tricky spots on residential roads that are curves and hills that we know are trouble spots and those got hit with salt brine as well.”
The city tries to pre-treat roads ahead of a major storm when they have confidence in the forecast, she said. As well as pre-treating the roads, crews ready their trucks by installing plows and loading them with salt.
The city has a pool of up to 150 dump trucks it can pull from the parks, water, solid waste and public works departments to be used on the arterial roads. It has up to another 115 pickup trucks that are used in residential neighborhoods.
The crews addressing the major roads were out Sunday morning salting and started plowing when the storm started accumulating. Snow from the heaviest snow bands started falling in the Kansas City area about the time that traffic was among the heaviest as fans headed to Arrowhead Stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos football game, Green said.
One challenge was the crush of traffic of fans headed to the game, which made it difficult for plows to get around Arrowhead Stadium.
“Any time there is high traffic in an area, as you can imagine, it kind of makes it difficult for our plows to navigate through,” Green said. “That was definitely a challenge for some of our routes and drivers encountered (Sunday).’
Residential crews were working side and neighborhood streets between noon and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. The majority of residential routes were plowed by Sunday evening, which means they received one pass by pickup with a seven-foot plow, Green said.
Clearing streets Monday and after
The city’s goal is to create a drivable lane in the neighborhoods, not plowing to bare pavement. The city also only treats curves, hills, intersections and known slick spots with salt and sand.
Residential crews were back out Monday making additional passes in the neighborhoods.
Crews on the major routes were out overnight and another shift came in Monday morning to continue to clear the primary streets from curb to curb down to bare pavement.
Kansas City has upgraded its vehicle tracking technology and has new GPS devices in its fleet of trucks that feed data into a new snow map that allows people to track the progress of snow removal after a storm.
“Because the rest of the week is expected to clear up and be a little bit warmer, we are anticipating kind of shifting back to normal operations starting (Tuesday),” Green said.
Crews will address calls reporting slick areas beginning Tuesday morning, she said.
“For the rest of the week, we will kind of just play it by ear as needed,” Green said. “Depending on how (Monday) goes, we may evaluate and determine that we need to send bridge crews out again in the evenings a couple more times this week.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2019 at 2:57 PM.
