Break out the plows: snow storm has Shakopee out in full force

Shakopee Valley News

As you shoveled your car out of the deep snow Tuesday and realized you got snow in your pants, you might have cursed a few things.

Maybe you cursed the weather, or your decision to move to Minnesota, or a higher being.

Maybe you cursed the snow plowers.

While some Shakopee residents questioned the efficacy of snow removal in Shakopee on Monday and Tuesday, city officials say they did as much as they could with the staff they have.

The Shakopee Public Works crew was out in full force from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday and 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, working to remove the snow that was dumped on the Twin Cities metro on Monday evening.

“The past blizzard that we had, it’s a little different than normal,” Public Works Director Steven Lillehaug said. “All in all, everything went pretty good in my opinion. We had a prediction and we warned our staff to be prepared to come in early and be flexible.”

Unlike cities such as St. Paul, which has enough employees to have day and night plow routes, Shakopee has to strike a balance between getting the routes done in a timely fashion and not tiring out the crew of 25 who must plow the entire city in eight hours.

“When we have an extended event that continues throughout the day, that’s when it gets difficult ... because we basically have one crew and it takes everybody that we have,” Lillehaug said.

The city has 13 primary snowplow routes and nine additional routes that include cul-de-sacs, parking lots and sidewalks. The focus during a major event is on the 13 primary routes.

“We sent our crews home at 4 p.m. (Monday),” Lillehaug said. “Our strategy was to get them some sleep because it’s the same crews that are back out there.”

The roads were icy, which made the job more difficult, Lillehaug said.

“Our main goal is to keep things passable,” Lillehaug said. “I think we did a pretty good job.”

Shakopee resident Linda Armstrong Feldmeier said she was able to get out of her neighborhood by 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

“I was totally impressed with (the) snow removal,” Armstrong Feldmeier said. “The timing of this storm and how rapidly it came down made it difficult to keep up with it.”

The amount of snow made it difficult to keep up and doing intermediate plowing would have helped, Shakopee resident Shaylene Finn said.

“I feel the city did a decent job with the amount we got in the short amount of time,” Finn said. “I am an in-home daycare provider, and some of my parents had trouble coming to pick up their kids. One even came walking and pulling a sled for fear their car would get stuck.”

Residents also worked together to help each other during the storm.

“I was fortunate enough to help a man get his car ‘unstuck’ out of the intersection on Alysheba, as no plows had come yet and he had a short, sedan-style car,” resident Tara Wright said. “My house is on a busy intersection, so I saw plenty of people spin out, hit the grass or get stuck in the intersection.”

Resident Jen Cleveland said a full plow was unreasonable given how much it snowed.

“They can’t plow every side street simultaneously, so some build up was bound to happen,” Cleveland said. “Buy a shovel and use it, it won’t generally kill you. Help your neighbors.”

Plows could have come through sooner, resident Katie Borka said.

“The storm was awful, I will not forget it for a long time,” Borka said. “I shoveled three times that day.”

Resident Jane Hochhalter said she had to take her kid to the emergency room a little after midnight. She said she lives on a cul-de-sac, which would have been considered a secondary route.

“If I did not have a four-wheel drive, there was no way I would have gotten out of my house,” Hochhalter said. “I came back around 3 a.m. and the street was not yet plowed. Earlier that day, around 5 p.m. on my five minute drive home from work, I saw six vehicles stuck on the way on the main streets in Shakopee. That’s when I knew the snow plowing job in town was not done well.”

If there are complaints or a road was missed or anything went wrong, Lillehaug said residents should call public works.

“Give us a call and we’ll come out and help on it and we’ll make sure we make adjustments when we need to,” Lillehaug said. “We ask that people be patient.”

What’s also important is following the rules of winter street parking, Lillehaug said.

“For every car — we call them snowbirds — we have to come back and clean that up once they move their vehicles,” Lillehaug said. “It’s important that the residents adhere to the parking restrictions. We take snow plowing seriously and it’s a big part of what we do in the winter.”

The city of Shakopee lists snow plow routes on the website, as well as snow removal tips. The city has snow parking rules that are in effect from Nov. 1 to March 31. No parking is allowed on city streets from 2 to 6 a.m. regardless of the day of the week, side of the street, or whether or not there’s snow.

“I think overall, the plows did an OK job,” resident Julie Schimerowski said. “My friend got her car snowed in because of the plows. But besides that, I felt like they did well.”

Under a snow emergency, parking restrictions are in effect for 24 hours a day until the snow has been plowed curb to curb on public streets.