Photo from Flickr user raisonettes

When the big snowstorm hit Seattle last week, the city had 27 snowplows available. Of course, this was less than adequate to plow all the main streets in the city, much less all the secondary routes and residential streets. On top of that, the city decided not to use salt on the roads out of environmental concerns. So, basically, the city was a mess for days and travel was brought to a grinding halt.

Now, of course having more snowplows at the ready would have solved some of this problem. This op-ed by Robert L. Jamieson Jr. at the Seattle P-I says that the city needs to start buying plows now, so they’re ready for the next storm. But not so fast, say others, The next big storm could be 10, 15, 20 years in the future. So why spend all the money to buy and maintain more plows, when they may not be needed until we’re all old and grey? Jamieson’s answer is that it’s similar to earthquake preparedness, and other forms of disaster readiness: it’s true that you may never need to use these things, but when you need them you really need them.

I’d say clearing the roads in a snowstorm is not quite the same level as making sure buildings don’t fall down in an earthquake. A big snowstorm is one “disaster” where everyone really can just wait in their houses until it’s over. And although those of us who live in places where snow is a little more common and snowplows are a familiar sight on the roads can make an easy joke out of Seattle not being prepared (27 snowplows? I keep 27 snowplows in my backyard!) the fact remains that Seattle almost never gets snow like this, and when it does it melts away quickly. How many snowplows do you think Los Angeles has in its maintenance yards? Would you argue they should be keeping a fleet at the ready, just in case?

So the snow crippled the city for a few days. So anybody who hit the streets did so at their own risk, more than usual. So the garbage wasn’t picked up for two weeks. This was not an emergency. The city could have done some things differently, of course, like plowing down to the pavement, and I think the salt decision in particular was a little silly. But getting a larger fleet of snowplows is probably the wrong response here. Maybe a good compromise would be to fit more trucks with chains and plow blades. The SDoT website seems to suggest that the snowplows they do have aren’t dedicated plows, but city work trucks that can be fitted with blades in the winter. Maybe they could evaluate if it would work to also fit out more trucks, maybe some smaller ones, so if another big storm does hit, they’ll be able to cobble together a makeshift fleet at a fraction of the cost.

Trackback this Post | Feed on comments to this Post