County: Minnesota couldn’t have done better

By Cindy Landrum  

JANUARY 13, 2011 10:30 a.m. (1)

Mother Nature’s one-two punch of heavy snow and freezing rain staggered the Upstate this week, but it could have been worse.

Although it took days for state, county and city crews to clear roads, schools closed during high school exam week and many businesses closed, power outages were scattered and the storm was less disruptive than originally expected.

“It’s labor intensive to get the snow and ice off the roads, but at least we’re not losing power,” said Mike Murphy, the city of Greenville’s director of public works. “If this is as bad as it gets, we’ll take it.”

The city budgets for five snow and ice storms per year, Murphy said.

“We know these are coming,” he said. “We just know we’ll get four, five or six small events each year.”

Although this week’s snowstorm was bigger than usual – with up to nine inches dumped on Greenville and the rest of the Upstate – it wasn’t the budget-killer like the 2005 ice storm was, Murphy said.

By Tuesday afternoon, city crews had primary roads such as Church, Academy and Augusta streets and Laurens Road passable, but neighborhood and secondary roads were still icy.

Greenville County spokesman Bob Mihalic said county road crews were calling conditions on Monday and Tuesday the “worst we’ve ever seen here.”

The county has designated snow routes so road crews can clear the streets drivers must use to get to the primary routes, such as Pine Forest Road and Altamont Terrace for drivers in the Paris Mountain area, Mihalic said.

The county had 10 snowplows operating at a time but snow fell on Monday so fast that by the time they got to the end of a snow route, the beginning of the route was covered once again.

“Usually that’s more than enough,” Mihalic said. “But if this happened in Minnesota, they couldn’t clear the roads in two days, either.”

State road crews concentrated on the interstates Monday and Tuesday before shifting their focus to the primary roads, said Steve Gwinn, District 3 maintenance engineer.

One hundred thirty employees worked each shift and used 90 pieces of equipment to clear the roads, he said.

“We’re not equipped to handle six-to eight inches of snow,” he said late Tuesday. “We’re doing the best we can.”

Crews from four counties in the lower part of the state and contractors also worked to clear roads, he said.

“It’s understandable that people are upset because they’re stir-crazy,” Gwinn said Tuesday afternoon. “But we were bombarded with 8-inches of snow and the storm was only yesterday.”

School district officials will have to decide when to schedule additional make-up days, said Oby Lyles, spokesman.

The district is required to build three make-up days into its calendar, but those were used up by Tuesday, he said. Make-up days are April 1, April 4 and June 2. District officials will consider its options once they see how many days will have to be made up, Lyles said.

“It’s not over yet. We still have the rest of January and February,” he said.

High school students were supposed to take exams this week. Each high school had informed students of make-up plans in advance of the storm on Jan. 7, Lyles said.

The first semester will have to be extended to allow time for the exams, he said.

At Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, the runways were open all week but there wasn’t any business.

Rosylin Weston, airport spokeswoman, said airport crews had the runway ready for the first scheduled departure on Monday morning and worked ever since to keep the runway clear and the airport operational, said

But numerous flights into and out of GSP were delayed or canceled because of weather.

“Some of the cities served by airlines out of GSP were affected by the storm at the same time as GSP and additional cities were affected later,” Weston said.

On Wednesday morning, all of the flights into and out of GSP were listed as on time.

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JimBob  - Snow Clearing...   |2011-01-13 23:40:15 “But if this happened in Minnesota, they couldn’t clear the roads in two days, either.” You're right, Bob. They would have cleared it in one day. Reply

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