MOUNT VERNON — Even though 18 inches of snow fell in Centerburg on Friday night and Saturday, the utility department were up to the task of snow removal.
Dan Davis, utilities superintendent, said the village had two trucks and three men on the job starting Friday at noon. One delay, however, was a flat tire on one of the trucks, but it was soon back in service.
Three men worked all day and night Saturday, then were back on the job Sunday. Davis said there were no major problems with the snow removal, and all the streets are now clear.
He said village employees were able to get some sidewalks cleared, and were back at that job this morning.
It was a little bit different story in Danville. Danville Village Administrator Robert Shipley said Danville plow crews did all they could could to deal with the 2 feet of snow.
“We worked all weekend,” said Shipley. “We have a 15-year-old dump truck and a 20-year-old pickup truck. They couldn’t even push the snow, it was just too much.”
“[The storm] got pretty bad,” said Shipley. “The square was really in bad shape and the state actually asked us for help in keeping Route 62 clear.”
Shipley added that crews were spreading salt on some roads this morning, and he was hoping to get some help from nature.
“It’s a slow process,” said Shipley. “I’d say we didn’t do anything different than anybody else would do with 2 feet of snow on the ground.”
Suzanne Hopkins, village administrator, said the streets in Gambier have been cleared, thanks to the hard work of village employees.
Hopkins said preparations for the winter storm were made on Friday. Two village employees used village plows to clear streets from 4 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. They hit the streets again after snow fell early on Sunday, and on Sunday afternoon, after the roads became slushy. She said that as far as she knows, there were no cases of snow-related accidents in Gambier.
“My crew did a great job,” Hopkins said.
In Martinsburg, village residents worked together to supplement Clay Township’s snow removal efforts.
“We share with the township as far as snow removal, so it took them a while to get to us,” said Mayor J.R.St. Clair. “But once they got the roads in the township cleared up, they got to us.
“We had a lot of volunteers. Steve Kidwell really went over and beyond. He’s not even a resident, but he owns property here, and he cleared parking lots ... he has a tractor with a bucket. There was a lot of local help. They dug in and did a good job.”
Mount Vernon Safety-Service Director Dave Glass said he is proud of the job the city street department did in keeping the main streets open throughout the storm.
“Everything went well,” he said. “The guys worked hard and did a good job.”
Glass, who was in the city to monitor snow removal efforts on Saturday, said the department went to 12-hour shifts beginning on Friday; they continued through the weekend and up to this morning. Around Saturday afternoon, street department employees began to plow the city’s side streets. At this point, he said, all of the side streets should have been plowed.
Street department employees are now starting to haul away large piles of snow from around Public Square and other spots in the downtown area. He said the hauled snow is dumped either in the field behind the water plant, or on the north end of Riverside Park.
Glass said he hasn’t received any complaints from residents about snow removal, adding that he is sure there will be some people who are unhappy about it.
“I think people were pretty intelligent about staying home,” he said. “There was hardly anyone on the streets on Saturday.”
Glass added that very few residents parked on snow streets. The city did not tow the ones who parked on these streets, but did plow around them. These people, he said, had some snow removal of their own to do.
Roger Reed, mayor of Fredericktown, is hoping that the village isn’t hit with another storm before spring, but he thinks that the village dealt with the past weekend’s snowfall well.
“Our guys did a super job,” said Reed. “The streets are really in pretty good shape now.”
In addition to the village’s snow-clearing equipment, Reed said numerous local residents were helping clear the snow, using tractors and even four-wheelers with plows attached. Scott Mast, chief of the Fredericktown Fire Department, said the department had zero calls over the weekend. Mast attributes the lack of emergency calls to the fact that the public was aware of the level three snow alert.
“Most people did pay attention to the level three [snow alert],” he said.
A lingering problem for Fredericktown from the large amount of snow are the large piles that were created by plowing. Reed said this creates parking problems in the downtown area of Fredericktown.
However, Reed said that with all the snow accumulation over the weekend, things went pretty well. He also said it was a good decision by Knox County Sheriff David Barber to put the county on a level three snow alert to keep people off of the snow-covered roads.
The Central Ohio Farmers Co-Op had people waiting in the street this morning until they could plow open the parking lot to the store, according to Ray McFadden.
“We’d normally be loading and unloading grain, but that won’t be happening today, due to the weather,” McFadden said.
Co-op officials hope to get plowed out and resume loading and unloading activities Tuesday. The store will be open as normal.
McFadden added that he didn’t think the drifts of snow covering the train tracks would be a problem to the diesel train engine, which has enough power to clear its own path unless snow is extremely high. No railroad loading is scheduled for today, but is expected to resume tomorrow.