Salt Lake City -- Salt Lake City Hall and public services have received dozens of calls on Monday from residents angry about their streets not being plowed yet.
Salt Lake City road crews have struggled to keep up with the high volume of snow in areas like downtown Salt Lake City. The problem is that all of the new snow is piling up with snow from previous storms that hasn’t melted off due to unusually cold temperatures.
City officials said the priority is to clear major thoroughfares and connector routes. However, some major roads still have plenty of snow covering them.
City officials have said their 45 plows have been overwhelmed, but Ralph Becker, Salt Lake City mayor, said more resources are on the way.
“In this case, bringing in some extra dump trucks from our public utilities department, and we still have to find a way to get that snow into the dump trucks and out, but we’re mobilizing all of the resources we can.”
Public Services Director Rick Grahm said the dump trucks will likely be in to remove the snow on Tuesday.
“We’re not in moving snow off the main streets in downtown yet," he said. "We can maybe get that tomorrow, but that depends on what tonight’s and tomorrow’s storm is going to bring to us.”
Two-thirds of the city’s snowplows were sent to residential areas following the complaints, and more neighborhood streets have been plowed.
However, some residents, like Walter Jones, are worried about the large piles of snow the plows leave behind.
“The one thing I don’t like is when they come here they plow that snow up into my driveway," he said. "They don’t mean to, but as the blade goes down it leaves a huge berm, and by the time I get to that berm it is 25-pound chunks of snow that have turned into ice. That bothers me a little bit, but I don’t see how else they could do it."
