Learning from last December’s snowstorm, Anchorage prepares for winter plowing

Last December, the city experienced several days of extreme snowfall, which caused major disruptions to residents. According to an article in The Anchorage Daily News, “back-to-back systems dumped at least 3 feet on much of Southcentral Alaska."

The snow hit during the last weeks of UAA’s fall semester, causing campus closures and disrupting classes during finals week. While snow was cleared from campus in a timely manner, other roads around Anchorage were a bigger issue for students.

Chi Xiong is a student at UAA. He said that winters have been mild recently and that he’s missed seeing heavy snowfalls, so it was fun to see all the snow.

But the weather and street conditions affected him negatively as well.

He said that he and his family would normally visit his grandma weekly in Anchorage, but those visits were put off for several weeks because of the poor road conditions.

‍At the Sept. 26 Anchorage Assembly meeting, member Zac Johnson gave an update on the city’s preparations for snow plowing this season. He said he received an update from the manager for street maintenance and municipal manager at an enterprise and utility oversight committee meeting, which Johnson vice-chairs.

Johnson said, “Everyone acknowledges that there was room for improvement after snow plowing last year. And it’s encouraging to see the effort that the Muni is putting in to coming up with a better plan for this year.”

He said that there are additional contracts being prepared to help supplement the city’s own snow removal operation and the city does not foresee needing additional dumpsites sites this year.

He said that Street Maintenance has hired eight employees, but there are still 16 vacancies.

A lack of employees was an issue that Street Maintenance was struggling with last year, according to an article in the Anchorage Daily News. A few weeks before the snow fall, former City Manager Amy Demboski told the assembly at a meeting that Street Maintenance was down 33 operators.

Johnson said that there is also an effort to improve communication between the city and state when it comes to road clearing.

“Some people may not realize that Anchorage is sort of a mishmash of state owned and maintained roads and municipally owned roads. And sometimes those efforts have not always seemed to be operating in harmony when it comes to snow clearing, so there’s an effort to do better in that regard.”

Johnson spoke with The Northern Light in an interview and added some information to his assembly meeting update.

He said the contracts he described at the meeting were non-encumbering, meaning that the city would only pay for the service if needed. He said having the contracts ready beforehand would help avoid delays.

And, he said, last year there was a problem with keeping the city’s road graders operational because of long lead times for replacement parts. They are now stockpiling some of the common parts to avoid that problem again.

Johnson also talked about the worker shortage problem: “We also had challenges attracting and retaining enough operators [last year] to actually use the equipment … I know the human resources department has made some adjustments to make the positions more attractive.”

He said there are eight seasonal workers expected to join street maintenance when construction season ends, in addition to the eight new-hires. He also said that there is improved preseason training for the snow plow operators.

He said one way residents can help with the plow effort is to avoid pushing snow from their driveways into the streets, which is a violation of city code.

If people have concerns, Johnson said they should reach out to assembly representatives.

“We recognize that we had some lessons to learn from last year. I think we’re taking those lessons to heart and we have a better plan for this year. It’s not to say it will be perfect. And if people have concerns … reach out and let us know and we’ll do our best to address it ... But just please be respectful of the people out there doing the hard work at the strange hours to keep the city functional.”

Kara Monroe, supervisor of UAA’s grounds and landscaping department, talked about the university’s efforts to keep the campus cleared of snow last year.

As Johnson pointed out at the assembly meeting, a major challenge to street plowing in Anchorage is the complex street ownership between the city and state. And many streets in Anchorage — including some at UAA — rely on private services to clear them.

Monroe said that all three streets at the intersection north of Rasmuson Hall have different entities responsible for their maintenance.

The city is responsible for Mallard Lane, UAA for Seawolf Drive and the Anchorage School District for Career Center Drive, she said.

Monroe said that UAA uses a contractor to clear the snow from the campus streets and parking lots and that their contractor prioritizes campus during a snowfall.

She said that the grounds department takes care of the sidewalks around campus and Residence Life has a team for the paths around the dorms. Their priority, she said, is to initially get paths cut after a snowfall — coming back to gradually widen them after all the paths have been cut.

‍She said it was a lot of work last year, but they were able to get everything cleared.

She said that one part of campus with known issues is the residence hall parking lots.

In order to clear out the parking lots, they have to give a notice to students to move their vehicles. And, she said, this can be challenging — especially over winter break because many students leave their vehicles on campus.

They tow vehicles that aren’t moved during a plow out, so they don’t do any residence parking lot clearing until after the break.

Regarding the December snowfall and their plowing operations, she said, “There wasn’t anything that … didn’t work out; that was the test, and I’m hoping – statistically – we don’t have a winter like that again.”