Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich and Director of Transportation Chris Conklin both said during Wednesday’s news briefing that, while they understand residents frustrations surrounding the county’s snow removal response, people should understand that thick and heavy ice is very hard to plow and move out of the area.
When Elrich said that the county would have had to spend millions more for larger plows and bigger dump trucks to handle last week’s storm, Conklin quickly added, “many, many, many millions.” That doesn’t include maintenance and personnel costs to drive the trucks.
Winter storms like this usually take place here every six to 10 years, he said.
If the storm had strictly brought snow to the area, the county would have received about 20 inches. “Clearing it would have been a lot easier,” Elrich said.
During large snowstorms, the county plows clear one side of the road, and then the other side the next day when parked cars are moved to the other side of the street. That didn’t happen this week as it was so difficult to shovel cars free, Elrich said
“The ice came pretty fast and pretty thick,” he said.
Many residents complained that snow was not cleared away from school bus stops, but Conklin pointed out many of those bus stops are by residential sidewalks and it is the responsibility of the homeowner to clear that space for students.
Meanwhile, the county continues to clear intersections and ramps to and from crosswalks at bus stops, Conklin said.
“Every conceivable piece (of equipment) was out at first,” he said. Then the ice came and the smaller plows were not effective.
Conklin estimated that the weight of the ice that fell in the county was 3 million tons, which he compared to the weight of 30 aircraft carriers.
“In this case, the weight, compactness and solidification” were the big problems, he said. Normally, county crews melt some of the snow as they plow, but that was not the case in last week’s storm.
Elrich said he “read and received thousands of anxiety-filled” emails from residents who couldn’t get to work or get out of their house. Elrich said he understood, but believes the county did the best it could under the circumstances.
When asked by MCM why so many councilmembers are blasting the county’s snow plowing efforts and holding meetings on the subject, Elrich replied, “It’s good politics,” adding, “It’s an election year.”
He then challenged those critics to explain what they would do differently.
“We mobilized everything,” he said. “I stand by the work our crews did. The snow changed to ice and that was paralyzing.”
The county was fortunate that there were only a few outages, Elrich said. “Basically, the lines help up. The good news is very few power lines went down” he said.
Conklin would not predict when all county streets would be clear. That depends if temperatures go below freezing for long periods and whether another snowfall hits the area this weekend, he said.
