With ‘major snow operations’ done, schools were closed in Missouri but open in Kansas
Superintendents from school districts on the Missouri side of the Kansas City area that closed Monday after the latest winter storm agreed on this much: The roads were plowed better this time.
But districts like the Kansas City Public Schools, Raytown and Center — with many old, narrow roads, many on hills, many without sidewalks — had more problems to deal with.
When they went out Sunday trying to gauge if they could get children to school safely Monday morning, they saw obstacle courses of downed tree limbs and sometimes downed power lines.
Many of their schools were still without power. Some of their students were among the tens of thousands of Kansas City Power & Light customers who remained without power Monday. The power outages could stretch into Thursday, KCP&L said Monday afternoon.
Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell saw it for himself, and his transportation team doing their own rounds “confirmed what I saw,” he said.
Come Monday morning, most Kansas-side school districts, which also suffered downed trees, broken power lines and outages, were open for classes.
But Kansas City Public Schools and many of its neighbors, including Raytown, Center, Grandview and Hickman Mills, were closed.
This was the fourth time this school year that the Kansas City district canceled classes after a winter storm. In late November, classes were canceled three days in a row because of poor road conditions.
That has Bedell considering whether the district should set up snow routes for its buses, where it can meet and pick up students on main streets after a storm, as an alternative to canceling classes.
The roads presented problems, Raytown Superintendent Allan Markley said. But if the roads were the only concern, he’d probably have held school Monday, he said.
Center School District spokeswoman Christina Medina shared some of the photos the transportation team took while surveying the south Kansas City district.
One on Prospect Avenue showed a plowed road, but a giant branch blocking it ahead. Another, on McGee Street, though icy, looked like it might be passable if not for the power lines snaking across the path. A third, on Walnut Street, showed a rough plow path meandering around low hanging branches weighted by the heavy snow.
And none of those streets have sidewalks.
“There are safety hazards getting to the bus,” Medina said. Bedell, while out checking streets Sunday, saw some of the narrow and hilly paths in his own neighborhood that gave him pause in his own car, let alone for a school bus full of children.
Kansas City declared major snow operations completed at 7 p.m. Sunday.
“All weekend, we had crews out on 12-hour shifts, so we were going around the clock essentially, because of the snow – 8 inches of snow is a big snowfall,” said city spokesman Chris Hernandez.
“We think we did a pretty good job of tackling those arterials. I think if you’ve been out on any of the main streets you’ve seen them cleared pretty well.”
Trucks were still out Monday in the neighborhoods working on residential streets, he said.
“A lot of those streets are in really good shape,” Hernandez said. “But the continued work that is going on is addressing those slick spots, a few missed streets here and there and . . . dead ends and cul-de-sacs.”
The dead ends and cul-de-sacs are the most difficult to clear because it’s hard to find a place to push the snow.
The trucks were not running regular routes Monday. Rather, they were responding to reports made to the city’s 311 Action Center of slick spots and missed streets.
“If they see a road that needs more work, they will hit it,” Hernandez said.
Slick streets can be reported to the 311 Action Center, which started taking reports at 8 a.m. Monday. People can contact the center by calling 311 or 816-513-1313, by sending tweets to @KCMO311 or by filling out an online form.
“When they come in, they get routed out to whatever crews are in that area as quickly as possible,” Hernandez said.
Kansas City also had crews out Monday assessing storm damage to trees and formulating plans on how to handle debris from the storm.
The city has asked residents to report to the 311 Action Center any downed branches in the public right-of-way that are creating a safety hazard. That would allow the city to send crews to take care of the problem as quickly as possible, Hernandez said.
“We are well aware that a whole lot of branches have come down all across the city,” he said.
The city hoped to announce later Monday what residents can do with downed limbs.
“It does depend on what we find and what we think we can do,” Hernandez said. “We also have to balance that with preps for the next storm.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2019 at 4:02 PM.
