When Superintendent Brian Hensel of the Missoula City Street Division went to work Monday morning, he knew it would be a challenging day. 

Hensel said it was 22 degrees...and raining on top of heavy snow that had fallen the day before.

"We'd already had most of our 'Priority One's' the main roads plowed over the weekend," Hensel said. "But with the rain, we kind of figured it could turn south. What happened right at about 8 or so it continued to rain and all the main routes that had been plowed all of a sudden turned to ice...bad ice. So, we had to have all our crews go back and re-deice all these streets that had already been plowed."

The city follows a very regimented schedule of plowing streets after a snowstorm. The city website shows the various routes that receive immediate attention, primarily school bus routes and main streets. Priority Two and Three streets receive attention after the main routes have been cleared.

Hensel said there is a hotline number for residents to call for help clearing snow from city streets.

"We always like people to call in and let us know which streets need to be cleared," Hensel said. The number is 552-6360 and I realize the voice mail message is very lengthy, but please stay with it and leave a message. We'll try to get to all the requests after we take care of all the priorities."

 

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