Officials Urge Patience As Metro Detroiters Wait For Plows: 'It's Not Like We're Lazy'
DETROIT (WWJ) - Patience, please. That's what officials across metro Detroit are telling residents still waiting to see snow plows come through their neighborhoods after the biggest snowfall in four decades.
In Royal Oak, Mayor Jim Ellison said they're making progress.
"We've got 214 linear miles of road that we've gotta cover. That's 400-something linear miles of curb that we've gotta touch with a plow — and it doesn't happen overnight," Ellison said.
"It's not like we're lazy or holding back," he added. "The guys are out there, the trucks are running constantly...they're running them constantly since 7 o'clock. We've had some breakdowns. We gotta bring them in, fix them and get them back on the road."
Ellison said, as expected, it's taking a little longer to clear the streets after 12 to 14 inches of snowfall than it would following a more typical storm. But, he said, he doesn't feel the city is "dramatically behind."
While those on the south side have been celebrating, some on Royal Oak's north end were still just about snowed in Tuesday morning.
Royal Oak resident Mary Kay was concerned about getting to a medical appointment.
"Don't know where the F Royal Oak's snow plows are, but they haven't done my street," she said. "Praying I can make it to a main road."
[Metro Detroiters Dig Out After Biggest Snowfall Since 1974]
In Warren, Mayor Jim Fouts said they're now focusing on residential streets, and expect to have everything clear by late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.
Fouts told WWJ he's thrilled by how quickly the snow removal has been moving along.
"We have 365 miles of residential street, we have 65 miles of main street, and the main roads we kept having to plow over and over again because of the blowing and drifting and continuous snow on Sunday into Monday morning," he said. "So, if that had not been the case we'd be wrapped up already."
For the progress thus far, Fouts gave credit to "everybody concerned" — as well as to some updated equipment.
"We have six new large DPW trucks and six small/medium-sized, and they're equipped with a new salt brine that melts it pretty easily; and we have blades on the side, which we didn't do before, so we're doing a great job."
Meantime, in southwest Detroit, some have become aggravated by where some plowed snow is being dumped.
David Bruce came out from his senior citizen complex to find he couldn't get into his car.
"They packed that snow up above my damn bumper, of all things! And I thought this is the dumbest damn thing in the world," Bruce said. "They should've had nobody plow instead of them...the fools."
The city of Detroit has promised to have all streets plowed by day's end.
In St. Clair Shores, City Manager Mike Smith said they've finished clearing all the neighborhood and secondary roads of snow, and the snow emergency has been lifted. However, he said, the city did issue about 200 tickets to people who failed to get their cars off the streets as ordered.
"But there were still a lot of folks who didn't get tickets or moved in later....and that was part of the reason why we didn't get it all done last night," Smith said. "A number of times we had to have trucks back up, go down streets other ways, push out folks who were stuck."
"Most of the residents, 90 percent of the residents, cooperated — but that 10 percent really did slow us down quite a bit," he said.
Smith said the city has a fresh supply of salt and they are ready for another round of snow in the forecast Tuesday night.
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