For those in warmer climes, a description of an urban snow emergency: [View all]

[MineralMan]

I live in St. Paul, MN. Whenever there is a 3" or deeper snowfall, the city declares a "Snow Emergency." It's not really a real emergency, but the city does have to plow the streets to get traffic back to normal. Minneapolis does the same thing, as do most suburbs. Now, if you don't live in a snow area, you might wonder what the big deal is, and what is involved in this "Snow Emergency" business.

Well St. Paul has hundreds of miles of streets within the city, and they all need to be plowed ASAP after each snowstorm. Typically, there will be five to eight of these a year. Here's what happens. First, the Snow Emergency is announced on all media outlets, and the city even sends emails to everyone who has signed up for that service. All media outlets. Not everyone hears about it, for some reason. That's odd. In fact, it's even odder, since we have one every time there's 3" of snow or more. It seems to come as a complete surprise to many St. Paul residents, somehow...go figure.

At 9PM on the day after the snow stops falling, the snow emergency begins. The plowing in St. Paul works like this:

Overnight, main arterial streets are plowed. These are all marked with signs. Anyone leaving a car parked on either side of these streets will get a ticket and their car will be towed to an impound lot if it's there after 9 PM. If your car gets towed, it will cost you about $200 to get it back, once you can get to the impound lot. The next morning, the local TV news gets to send a field reporter to the impound lot to interview frustrated car owners who didn't get the word. It's a laugh riot.

The next day, all remaining streets get plowed by a large fleet of city-owned snowplows. From 8AM until each street is plowed curb to curb, no parking is allowed on these day plow routes. Cars left on the street are likely to be ticketed or towed, but the farther out you are from the city center, the less likely you'll be to get towed. Most of these streets are residential streets, and not everyone has a garage or driveway. Others have garages in alleys, which are clogged with snow and owners are responsible for clearing alley snow themselves. So, it's a real problem for folks who have no offstreet place to park. It can be frustrating, indeed.

Then there are those who seem oblivious of Snow Emergencies, despite having lived in the city for years. Everyone who leaves a car on the street, but doesn't get towed is in for a fun surprise. The snow plows just go around the car, leaving it buried to a variable depth in heavy, dense snow that comes off the end of the plow. Not fun to dig out. Cursing loudly is the order of the day for such people, who also include the folks who leave the bar at closing time and forget about the snow emergency. It's a sure hangover cure, shoveling out your car.

Those same plows also leave a deep ridge of snow at the end of every driveway, adding to the snow removal chores for people who live there. In a 12" snowfall, those ridges can be three feet deep, and are heavy shoveling.

Minneapolis takes two days to plow the residential and side streets. On alternate days, parking is prohibited on one or the other side. This causes great confusion among residents, who never seem to know which side they're supposed to park on. Their cars get towed, ticketed, or buried by the snowplows. Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues. The same people tend to get towed after each snowstorm. I have not figured that one out yet.

In the meantime, residents are out snowblowing, shoveling, cursing, and generally cleaning up. Most are, anyhow. There's another fleet of privately-owned snowplows, mounted on 4WD pickups, driven mostly by out-of-work construction workers, that will clear your driveway, etc., for a fee. They're everywhere. If you forgot to arrange for the service, you can just flag one down and get your stuff done. $50 or so for a typical driveway. It's easy, but can get costly in a snowy winter.

If you have a city sidewalk in front of your house, you're responsible for clearing that, too, and there's a nice fine if you don't, although the city doesn't actually send people around to check. Neighbors who don't like you will call the city, though, if you don't get out there and do it. Fortunately, in most neighborhoods, there are nice folks with snowblowers who generally will do more than their own sidewalk. I do the sidewalks in front of four houses, since those folks don't have the tools or are too old to do it. I get cookies from them from time to time.

Then...and here's the kicker...not long after you get all of this done and have reasonably clean driveways, sidewalks, and streets to use again, another storm comes in and you get to start all over again. Winter lasts six months in Minnesota, I'm sure.

Winter's fun! Yes, indeed, it is. Yah, sure, you betcha!