The snow ended Monday night but residents in all corners of Prince George’s County say their neighborhood streets remain a frozen mess, as people struggle to get to work and to school.
The complaints are coming in from all corners of the county — Fort Washington to Laurel and several neighborhoods in between.
For instance, normally it takes the speed bumps on Hickory Hill Avenue in Lanham to slow down the traffic between Princess Garden Parkway and Cipriano Road. The sheet of ice laying nearly end to end is taking care of that this week.
“You go down this hill, and if you’re not careful, your car will slide right into Princess Garden Parkway,” said Peter Wood, who lives on that road. “You can tell they haven’t even plowed, because there’s no mound of snow in front of our driveway.”
A trip along Ritchie Marlboro Road found numerous neighborhoods also still dealing with roads more navigable by sled than by car.
In the Marlboro Riding neighborhood, Derrek White was standing in front of a clean driveway, watching cars slowly creep past.
“People drive past and they kind of just packed the snow in, and now it’s just a sheet of ice that everybody’s nervous to drive over,” White said. “It’s just terrible.”
He said people are crawling and even stopping toward the intersection with Ritchie Marlboro Road, worried they’ll slide right through the intersection and into oncoming traffic. He said he’s lived here about two years and never seen roads this bad.
“The first time it snowed, I was actually impressed by how easy they clean the streets,” he said. “But it’s like this time around, nobody’s here. It’s nonexistent.”
Michael Johnson, the Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation director, said even neighborhoods where residents think they’ve been ignored have actually gotten service — but the frigid air has made it harder for crews working 12-hour shifts.
“What has sort of confounded this issue has been the low temperature,” Johnson said. “Even though you’ve plowed at night, it freezes and the roadway salt is not as effective at temperatures that are below 20 degrees Fahrenheit.”
He’s promising noticeable improvements by Friday, because of changes coming to the chemicals they’re using to treat the roads.
“We are introducing a different chemical — magnesium-based chemical — that would help with low temperatures,” Johnson said. “It’s more effective. It makes salt more effective at lower temperatures.”
That addition is expected to start getting used Thursday evening.
“We can’t do anything about the low temperatures that we were experiencing, but by changing some chemicals that we’re using. I’m confident that we will get a better result,” he said.
In the meantime, the complaints continue to pour in.
Council member Wala Blegay said a public hearing needs to be held later on to determine why there’s been so many problems this week.
“We have a lot of residents who need to leave to go to work, and so they are very frustrated and complaining, and we are trying to figure out what’s going on,” she said. “You don’t want residents to feel that they don’t have the support from the government.”
Blegay said residents still trying to safely leave their neighborhoods should let their county council representative know, and also call 311 to reach DPWT. Meanwhile, residents can go online and follow the work still happening.
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