Skip to content
Politics
Link copied to clipboard

City: Storm cleanup could take until Friday

This week’s snowstorm may have failed to deliver the deluge it threatened, but what did fall is proving a pain to get rid of.

Two people dig their vehicle out from frozen snow and ice along N. 13th St. near Hamilton in Philadelphia on Wednesday morning.
Two people dig their vehicle out from frozen snow and ice along N. 13th St. near Hamilton in Philadelphia on Wednesday morning.Read moreAlejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

This week's snowstorm failed to deliver the deluge it threatened, but what did fall is proving a pain to clean up.

Philadelphia Streets Commissioner Carlton Williams said the layers of ice and snow that fell Monday night into Tuesday afternoon have compacted, causing a thick layer on many streets that his crews "have to try to chip away at." He said it could take until the end of the day Friday for all residential streets to be plowed.

"This is one of the more challenging" storms, he said. "Actually, I'd prefer to have more snow without the freezing rain and ice, because it's easier for us to plow and salt, and we can move that easier. But when you start to get freezing rain, ice, sleet, it makes it very challenging for us."

Williams asked residents whose streets have not been cleared by Thursday morning to call 311.

City spokesman Mike Dunn said 450 plows and other pieces of equipment were on the roads at the peak of the storm, and 70 remained there on Wednesday. He said 17 plows would be working overnight Wednesday, to help where there are reports of icing.

Williams said primary and secondary streets were cleared Tuesday.

But finishing the residential streets, he said, was made more challenging by an additional layer of snow that fell late in the day Tuesday and dropping temperatures. He said in some cases where plows are not able to cut through ice on the roadways, crews are having to drop a layer of salt, then return later to try plowing again.

"We believe we're going to have to do two passes on some streets because of the freezing areas and temperatures," he said.