Snowstorm meant all hands on deck for City

With a crew of only six employees, Sisters Public Works Director Paul Bertagna and his team put in over 500 person-hours between Sunday, February 24 and Thursday night, February 28, working around the clock clearing Sisters' streets of the heavy snowfall that reached over 30 inches.

"We actually enjoy moving the snow," Bertagna admitted. "It's all hands on deck and we just do it."

What isn't fun is when residents leave cars parked along the streets, making it difficult to do adequate plowing. Bertagna reminds the public they can help the crew with their plowing duties by moving cars off the street when snow first begins to fall. If they can't park in their own driveways or garages, move the cars to a public parking lot.

Garbage cans shouldn't be put out until the morning of pick-up and then brought back in as soon as possible when there is snow. Cans are another impediment for the plows doing their job.

The City has developed a snow-removal priority map that shows the order in which streets are plowed, with top priority being the downtown core, Camp Polk Road to the city limits, Barclay Drive, McKinney Butte Road, and the FivePine campus. Highway 20 (including Cascade Avenue), Highway 242, and Highway 126 are the responsibility of ODOT. Most neighborhood streets are second priority with a few neighborhood cul de sacs around town being third priority.

Due to the growing number of driveways in town and a limited number of staff and equipment, individual driveways cannot be cleared of the berm created by the plows. Removal of driveway berms and clearing sidewalks is the responsibility of the adjacent resident and/or business owner, sidewalks within six hours of daylight following the snowfall or ice event. The crew asks for the public's understanding.

The City asks citizens to refrain from using ice melt or similar products that contain salt because they can damage sidewalks. Bird seed or sand can be a good alternative for keeping the sidewalks safe.

When clearing a driveway, to reduce the chances of snow being pushed back across the driveway, collect the snow on the side of the driveway in which the traffic moves. In other words, looking at the street from the driveway, if the traffic moves from left to right, put the snow to the right side of the driveway entrance.

Bertagna cautioned parents to not allow their children to play in berms and large snow banks next to streets to avoid being injured by snow removal equipment.

"Please keep the kids in your yard," Bertagna requested.

Bertagna noted that in Oregon, crews aren't allowed to use salt on the roads because of environmental concerns and possible damage of vehicles by the salt.

Despite a tapering off of the snowfall, the crew's work is far from done. Working with ODOT, from 8 p.m. to first light, last Thursday night they began clearing the piles of snow from the south side of Cascade, getting half of the snow moved. Using an ODOT loader and City trucks, snow was hauled from downtown to the red dirt triangle near the truck scales at the junction of highways 20 and 126. They were scheduled to repeat Thursday night's activities until all the snow was removed from the sides of Cascade.

Also last Friday night private contractors were coming in to haul snow from the rest of downtown areas out to the old ODOT yard behind the U.S. Forest Service property at the west end of town. Most importantly, they were clearing piles of snow off the storm drains so as snow melts it will be able to run off and not collect in large puddles.

Bertagna said the goal is to get all storm drains in town exposed.

Bertagna said this weather event has gone very smoothly with all equipment running well. Whenever there is a big snowfall that comes quickly, a lot of work is required immediately.