Omaha Snow Removal

[stormchaser]

First of all let me preface this with a couple things:

- I appreciate all of the effort, long hours, and hard work people put in to clear the streets in Omaha after a snow storm.
- As some of you may know, I lived most of my life in MN (I'm 45 now) and moved to Omaha in 2015.

I'll never understand why Omaha always seems to do a lackluster job with snow removal (in general). I understand, budgets/number of plows here are different than MN for obvious reasons and much of the work here is done by contract workers in pickups with plows - but why in the world do they always fail to plow anywhere close to the curbs on each side of the street (even when there aren't parked vehicles in the way) and fail to actually remove snow down to the surface itself (or at least try to anyway - they always leave a layer which quickly just becomes a solid sheet of ice). I've been told by others that this is their policy to try to prevent damaging the roads with the plow but that seems pretty silly. What do they think happens when that layer of snow/ice melts, gets down into the cracks in the road, and then freezes again? This is part of the reason why Omaha always has so many potholes as soon as the weather warms.

An example, on my street - one side of the street still has enough snow on it that I bet it reaches out into the street away from the curb ~3 or 4 feet and the road itself is a solid sheet of ice. This is a problem because I live in a neighborhood where many houses have single car garages/driveways so many people park additional vehicles on the street. This makes it nearly impossible to safely get down our street if cars are parked on both sides of the street (which in some areas they often are) and completely impossible if a rescue vehicle or garbage trucks needs to get through.

I called the city yesterday about having someone come to actually finish plowing our street and they assured me they would. As of this morning, that hasn't happened yet but why wouldn't it just be done correctly the first time? I wouldn't be as bothered by it but this seems to happen every time we get a decent snowfall.

Is this just a contract worker who simply doesn't care because they know there isn't much followthrough to ensure things are being properly done and they'll get paid regardless or is this common place for most Omaha neighborhoods?

[Busguy2010]

I don't know what was different about this snow storm than any other significant one, but they did a markedly pi$$ poor job with this one. They went down my street a grand total of once, and that was early in the morning before the storm was even done and we got a few more inches after that. Here we are several days later and even very main roads are still only maybe 50% clear and many spots have a super dangerous packed down icing layer. It's just terrible out there still. I don't recall the last time we had a storm and it was still this treacherous this many days later.

[Louie]

Here we are several days later and even very main roads are still only maybe 50% clear and many spots have a super dangerous packed down icing layer. It's just terrible out there still. I don't recall the last time we had a storm and it was still this treacherous this many days later.

If anyone has gone east on w dodge where dodge st merges with it (by childrens), it is scarily slick still. Fender benders all day yesterday.

[Busguy2010]

Here we are several days later and even very main roads are still only maybe 50% clear and many spots have a super dangerous packed down icing layer. It's just terrible out there still. I don't recall the last time we had a storm and it was still this treacherous this many days later.

If anyone has gone east on w dodge where dodge st merges with it (by childrens), it is scarily slick still. Fender benders all day yesterday.

It's pretty much any given intersection and it doesn't matter how busy it is. That's the uniquely bad aspect of the job they did this time. Like, I'd usually expect here 4 or 5 days later for at least the main roads to be back to a normal level of safety. And the kicker here is I think others are assuming the same and they're now driving as if there's not still a layer of icing on every road and at every intersection. I'm legit terrified every time I go out there, not because I'm worried about how I get around in it, but because there's a lot of people out there driving like it's all cleared away. Following too closely, passing when there's just barely enough room and only one lane is actually cleared, pulling up to intersections with way too much speed, etc.

[nebugeater]

Don't lose sight of the fact that at the temps that we were at for a long time, the salt and salt/sand mix do not work. It's not the only issue, but it sure contributes.

[Louie]

Don't lose sight of the fact that at the temps that we were at for a long time, the salt and salt/sand mix do not work. It's not the only issue, but it sure contributes.

Absolutely. That is a unique additional issue from this storm.

[Athomsfere]

The snow also started when it was warm. So we had a nice layer of water / ice beneath the snow.

Then we got the snow, plus artic winds. Temps dropped to -20.

And to cap it all off: Dodge near methodist had the water main break in the -20. So we had a real ice rink there for a bit I'm sure.

[Busguy2010]

My street is designed to have parking on each side as well as the traffic flow undisturbed in each direction. It's a pretty darn wide street, and yet with the way it's been cleared its literally a one way street now, downhill only. You encounter somebody going downhill and have to move to the side and stop, you're never getting going back uphill. I get there's certain challenges, but I'd have to say they've never done this minimal of a job before. Not I'm my neighborhood and really, not around the whole of the street network. Somethings gotta be up because I'm just not seeing them out there working. Like they did one pass and gave up or something.

[swinquest]

My neighborhood is nothing but hills. Every time there is snowfall, it is a pain to get out, especially with my driveway in the middle of a hill. The city released two notices about work being done on the residential streets (putting down sand) and to this day, I have not seen one truck putting ANYTHING down. I drafted an e-mail to the mayor's hotline and to her chief of staff, but haven't sent it. This is one of the worst stretches that I have seen with no attention.

This is to top it off with over an inch of ice/snow-packed streets, which is enough to make one of our cars to be stuck. It has yet to leave the neighborhood as it will slide all over the place and get stuck....barely made it back up to our driveway after trying to get a running start to try to get out.

[Busguy2010]

I definitely agree this event, or events, has been the worst job the city has done as far back as I remember. It was bad, but not extraordinarily bad, so I still think there's just a management issue with it. Though I will say my own street got significantly better after the second snow on Friday. Don't know if it was a coincidence in timing, or they were actually waiting til after the second snow to actually do a decent job. As recently as yesterday, some of the less busy streets in my neighborhood were virtually unclear ed. But since the melting they've gotten a lot better already.

[stormchaser]

I definitely agree this event, or events, has been the worst job the city has done as far back as I remember. It was bad, but not extraordinarily bad, so I still think there's just a management issue with it. Though I will say my own street got significantly better after the second snow on Friday. Don't know if it was a coincidence in timing, or they were actually waiting til after the second snow to actually do a decent job. As recently as yesterday, some of the less busy streets in my neighborhood were virtually unclear ed. But since the melting they've gotten a lot better already.

Unfortunately my street they really haven't done much else. I "think" they plowed after the most recent snowfall (where we ended up with ~3 inches of snow) but the fact I'm not sure should be pretty telling as to how well it was done. Either way, despite my call to the city and their agreement to send someone out to finish plowing the road from our biggest storm, they never bothered to come out and still nearly half of our road is completely unplowed. Thankfully it's melting and should mostly be gone soon.