FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, January 10, 2009
City of Toledo Issues Snow Emergency
With snow accumulations expected to reach between 8" -10" by Sunday, City of Toledo Chief of Staff/Public Safety Director Robert Reinbolt has declared a Snow Emergency, effective immediately. During a Snow Emergency, citizens are asked not to park their vehicles on snow emergency routes, which are basically the City's main streets, including all TARTA bus routes. The purpose of this parking ban is to allow plow trucks to remove snow more quickly and efficiently. Citizens and the media can call the Streets, Bridges & Harbor dispatcher for a list of snow emergency routes (phone number is below).
Plowing will continue around the clock to keep Toledo's streets as clean and safe as possible, with 101 plow trucks currently deployed. At 6 a.m. this morning, the City of Toledo Storm Command Center was activated. Sister divisions of the City of Toledo Departments of Public Service and Public Utilities (Parks, Sewers, Water, etc.), and private snow plow operators were called in to begin plowing the City's residential streets. Street, Bridges & Harbor crews will continue to keep Priority l streets open throughout the storm.
Questions can be answered by calling the Streets, Bridges & Harbor dispatcher at 419-936-2523.
As an aside - I had an errand to run which poses no problems for me in my 4WD Jeep, and saw one of my neighbors two streets over having the time of his life. Well, maybe not the time of his life, but he sure did look like he was having fun. He's got a small plow attached to the front of his ATV and he was going up and down his street shovelling the snow aside, waving at neighbors doing their sidewalks and just grinning as much as his face would allow.
What a nice thing to do, especially since I have no expectation that my street will be plowed anytime soon...despite the best efforts of the city employees. We're just not high on the priority list. Wonder if he'll head this way when his street is done? I'll give him a beer, if he does...
4 comments:
Maggie,
It is always refreshing to see the generosity of a neighbor these days, and I can see how it would do your heart good. One also has to take note in such situations at what citizens can and will do for each other, even without the gun of government to force them.
I used to live in a town in New Jersey where you would get a $25 fine if you did not have your sidewalk cleared by a certain time. The problem was that the city kept plowing the street even when it was already cleared. Each time they would plow a little closer to the side which meant that the snow and ice was pushed back onto the sidewalk.
I had a roommate at the time time and he was just recovering from a gall bladder operation and I had a bad back that was flaring up. The two of us got the walk cleared 3 times and then the city came through and shoved more onto the walk. The landlord got a ticket for that which I finally got him to question. He won and it got thrown out.
Right after that a bunch of us notice that the big church on the corner which took up a quarter of the block and had a lot of sidewalk hired a guy to plow their walks with his ATV. We talked to the pastor and the church paid the guy to clear the walks all around the block for us. He was really good about it and nobody on that block ever had a problem with the city and the snow removal after that. The church wouldn't even accept anything for doing this. Once in a while the good guys win.
I moved away from that benighted city as soon as I could. Those people were nuts. Town had 35K people and they had over 2000 employees, all unionized. The meter maids patrolled in pickup trucks, 2/truck. The city had itself declared a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. The day I moved in my moving guys got there at 7:30 on a Saturday on a side street. They parked in front of the house and I took them to breakfast before they unloaded. Meters took affect at 8 AM. They had a ticket on the moving van for $50 at 8:05 AM. Should have told me the kind of town it was right away. They had every yuppie store in creation in that place. Taxes were outrageous. My landlord had a Victorian 2 family on a lot that was 40x100. Needed a lot of work. His taxes were $14K/year. He finally sold it right after I moved out.
Maybe someone from the City read your blog and that's why they sent a plow later to do your street.
:-)
Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to have worked over here, the plow hasn't come back except for the one quick pass down the center of the street.
I remember a time when some of our neighbors had trucks with plows that they used in the winter time to make some additional cash, they were always really nice about plowing the street and helping us to clear the driveways of some of our elderly residents.
Maggie,
I know that you wouldn't do it but, if you were to "borrow" a "Townley" street sign and temporarily swap it out for yours...
:-)
Post a Comment