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Storm breaks the bank for city's snow removal budget ­ Richmond Times­Dispatch: Virginia News
Storm breaks the bank for city's snow removal
budget
By ROBERT ZULLO AND NED OLIVER Richmond Times­Dispatch | Posted: Thursday,
February 4, 2016 10:30 pm
The snow that blanketed the region two weeks ago is
all but gone, clinging on in isolated piles of stubborn
dirty slush that warm temperatures and rain are
quickly turning into a memory.
But for the Virginia Department of Transportation and
local governments, the costs for responding to what
Gov. Terry McAuliffe has said could be the most
expensive snowstorm in state history are still being
tabulated.
20160126_MET_PLOW_KM1
A front end loader is used to push snow off
of W. 31st Street at Perry Street in south
Richmond, in the late morning of Jan. 26,
2015.
“The invoices are still coming in and we are still
tallying everything up,” said Tamara Rollison, a
spokeswoman for VDOT. The state employed 9,500
people, mostly contractors, using 13,000 pieces of equipment, including plows, spreaders and other
trucks, to clear 58,000 miles of road during the storm.
“This was a storm we measured in feet instead of inches, which is unusual for Virginia. And it was
statewide,” Rollison said. “This was a historic snowstorm for us. We don’t know yet if it was the
biggest in history, but it definitely was an epic storm for us.”
Rollison said the governor’s estimate that the storm response would likely consume all of the line
item for snow removal for the year, a little more than $202 million, was sound. VDOT’s maintenance
budget is $1.6 billion for the current year.
“If we have another big storm that hits us, we’ll just have to go deeper into our maintenance budget
to be able to respond to it accordingly,” she said.
Public Works strategy
Sharon North, a spokeswoman for Richmond’s Department of Public Works, said the city’s initial
cost estimate for the storm is about $1.75 million, more than double the winter storm and inclement
weather budget line item figure of $700,000.
More than 200 city employees worked during the event, operating more than 50 trucks and plows and
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spreading more than 2,000 tons of salt and sand. Five contractors helped clear the city’s 1,800 lane
miles of roads.
How good a job the city did cleaning up the snow, however, depended on who was talking.
“Bravo to city crews who were in neighborhoods in less than 24 hours after the last snowflake fell,”
Mayor Dwight C. Jones said at his State of the City address last week.
Richmond City Council members were less impressed, saying they had fielded numerous complaints
from residents and witnessed poor conditions firsthand.
“My neighbors and I had to dig an ambulance out of the snow literally at Retreat Doctors’ Hospital
because none of the roads had been plowed Monday,” said Councilman Charles R. Samuels, 2nd
District. “There was a major problem there.”
Public Works tried a new strategy of only partially clearing main roads in an effort to get into
neighborhoods more quickly, said Bobby Vincent, the department’s deputy director for operations.
That meant, for example, crews plowed one lane of a two­lane road before moving on, which created
some traffic snarls as commuters attempted to get back to work last week.
“I wouldn’t have a problem with roads like Monument Avenue only having one lane cleared if the
neighborhoods were also better off,” said Councilman Jonathan T. Baliles, 1st District. “But in this
case, from the reports I heard, that wasn’t the case.”
Councilman Parker C. Agelasto, 5th District, was especially critical of the city for failing to enforce
towing on emergency routes.
“If you traveled down Main Street on Monday, Tuesday or even Wednesday last week, you would
know it became a one­lane road,” he said. “That was unacceptable. There was lost business on the
days where the weather had improved. I don’t think the city performed very well from what I
witnessed.”
Council members also criticized the city’s public affairs staff for directing residents to an online
snow­plow tracker that, for the duration of the storm, showed that all main roads were in progress
and provided no information about when neighborhood streets would be plowed.
They also expressed annoyance that residents who called the city’s 311 call center about snow were
instead directed to call council members.
“If 311 is going to pass the buck to council, then maybe there shouldn’t be a 311,” Agelasto said.
At a council committee meeting last week, Vincent acknowledged that “500 or so” people had called
to complain, though he said the city’s roads were “on par with the surrounding localities,” evidenced
by the fact that city schools reopened on the same day as those in Henrico, Hanover and Chesterfield.
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“More city resources aren’t necessarily needed with regard to this storm, but they can always be
desired,” he said. “Instead of having 50 crews out there, you could have had 100 crews out there and
you still would have wound up fighting the storm almost in the same amount of time due to the fact
that Mother Nature in Richmond, Virginia, kicks in. This isn’t Montana or Ohio or Minnesota where
we typically get 12 inches of snow frequently, followed by single­digit temperatures.”
‘Monumental storm’
Tyrone Nelson, chairman of the Henrico County Board of Supervisors, said he was able to get to
Virginia Commonwealth University’s basketball game at the Siegel Center on Jan. 24, less than a day
after the snow stopped falling, and was “pleased” with how VDOT, the county and the city handled a
“monumental storm.”
“In my lifetime, I can only remember a few storms over a foot of snow,” said Nelson, 42. “Our
residents are spoiled, and they are used to us taking care of stuff, which we do.”
Henrico is responsible for maintaining about 1,400 miles of roads, which works out to about 3,500
lane miles.
Total government expenses for the storm are estimated at a little more than $4 million, including $3
million for road clearing, overtime for public safety workers and additional costs for clearing parking
lots at county facilities, said Will Jones, county spokesman.
Mike Jennings, assistant director of Public Works, said about 170 employees worked the event.
Including contractors, Henrico used 85 plows and 41 pieces of heavy equipment, such as front­end
loaders, during the storm.
“It is something we’re going to look at and evaluate and see if any changes are necessary,” Jennings
said.
‘Very few calls’
In the Richmond area, only the city and Henrico are responsible for clearing their own roads, with
VDOT handling all primary and secondary roads in Chesterfield and Hanover counties, where the
state got good reviews from local elected officials.
“They got on it pretty good, and I guess people understood it was a pretty bad storm,” said Aubrey
Stanley, chairman of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors. “Usually a storm of that magnitude,
you get more people calling in. ... I had very, very few calls.”
Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors Chairman Steve Elswick said he and his colleagues
received “a few emails” from constituents who were “dissatisfied with the amount of time it took
VDOT to respond,” though he did not get any from his rural Matoaca District.
“I think they were very patient with VDOT and very understanding with VDOT,” he said. “And I
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think VDOT did a really good job.”
Though he heard reports of ambulances getting stuck in some subdivisions, Elswick could not fault
the response to what was the biggest snowstorm to hit the Richmond area in nearly 16 years and the
11th­largest on record.
“We don’t have that often,” he said. “It’s a major, major task to move that much snow, as many roads
as we have in Chesterfield County.”
Officials in Hanover and Chesterfield are still calculating the costs of clearing county facilities, such
as the Chesterfield County Airport, where crews spent a combined 331 hours working to prepare it to
reopen on Jan. 25, said David Goode, county spokesman.
Local school systems are responsible for clearing their own properties. Richmond estimated its
cleanup costs at about $43,000, said Kenita Bowers, a spokeswoman. Chesterfield, Hanover and
Henrico schools were still calculating the storm’s price tag.
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