Weeks after a winter storm brought a mix of snow and sleet to D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser touted the city’s ability to get schools reopened and roads cleared but said she isn’t satisfied that some residents still haven’t had their trash picked up.
While roads across the area are largely cleared from what some regional leaders have described as “snowcrete,” or a hard, icy layer of snow resembling concrete, some residents and work commuters said their cars are periodically getting stuck. In D.C., crews have relocated the hardpack snow to three locations across the city.
“We had an unprecedented amount of ice that rained, and a 150-year cold spell that followed it,” Bowser said in an interview with WTOP. “We got a lot of snow, ice rain on top, and an immediate two-week cold spell that didn’t permit any melting.”
In the days that followed the winter weather event, Bowser said crews were able to get schools and government open and buses and trains running, which “is what allows the economic engine of the city to be maintained.”
For the first time, as part of the snow response, D.C.’s Department of Public Works went into alleys with snow equipment to “pull trash out of residential alleys,” Bowser said. It’s never been done, she said, because there’s not usually two weeks of snow that doesn’t melt, “and so we can’t go two weeks without getting the trash.”
That work is still ongoing, Bowser said.
Asked whether the city’s snow response was sufficient, Bowser said, “I can’t give you a yes or no. … I am not satisfied that we don’t have all the trash.”
Residents give their two cents
Hector Poblete commutes to the city for work and said the drive remains “a really, really big hassle.”
“I have a co-worker who’s using street parking, got stuck again,” Poblete said. “And how long ago did it snow?”
Sherry Sprague, who lives in Cleveland Park, took the Metro to an appointment Thursday instead of driving.
“It was a really good start to it,” Sprague said of the cleanup. “And then it kind of fizzled. I was a little disappointed in that.”
Meanwhile, Bowser said it’s unlikely for the city to invest in snow melting machines, because “we have adequate snow storage facilities. But we do now. In the future, some of those areas where we’re storing snow now will be developed, so we will need a strategy of where to store large amounts of snow.”
As for whether the city could consider working with parking garage owners to get cars off the streets before a winter storm, Bowser said, “It’s something that certainly could be on the table. I don’t know that we have that level of private parking in our residential areas, but to the extent that there are parking garages, that’s something that the government could be involved in, but wouldn’t have to be involved in.”
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