With storms, city snow plows working 24 hours

(For road condition information, call 877-NVROADS (687-6237).

On days like Friday, the sight of a snow plow coming down the road was a welcome one.

But John Tomasco received frustrated looks from some Carson City residents Friday afternoon as he pushed snow off the roads - and into their recently shoveled driveways.

"What can you do?" he sighed. "Some people give you the thumbs up.

"Since they've already shoveled, they're going to be real mad," he said as his snow plow pushed snow onto a cleared sidewalk.

After clearing major roads such as Northgate Lane and Arrowhead Drive, Tomasco headed into purely residential streets in the area. Children in snowsuits tried to wave him into one buried cul de sac, but it was too small for the plow. Others clad in their winter garb waved as he went by.

Still others grimaced as they watched their clear path to the road covered in a flurry of brown slush. On some roads he dropped a sand and salt mixture to help melt the snow and provide a little extra traction for travelers. And on every road, cars, even the snow plow, slid over the slick roads.

"How are you supposed to get out of this?" he said. "Even if you just go through one time, you're giving them a place to go."

As he drove through a puddle of water pooling on a street corner, he radioed a fellow street division worker to see if the storm drain in the area could be checked and uncovered. If the water from melting snow doesn't make it into the drains, the corner will turn into a sheet of ice with nightfall. Clearing storm drains is a crucial part of snow removal, he said.

Recent snowstorms that dumped more than a foot of snow in the capital have forced the Carson City street department into 24-hour, overtime operation mode. Scott Magruder, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Transportation, said state workers were also on a 24-hour schedule and that workers had been pulled from Reno and Lake Tahoe to help with snow removal in Carson.

John Flansberg, Carson City street operations manager, said he wasn't too worried at the beginning of the storm because just a few inches of snow was predicted.

"Apparently everyone else was lucky," Flansberg said of neighboring snow-free communities. "We just keep getting hit and hit and hit."

Flansberg said the street department is almost at the limit of its ability to remove snow without the help of a contractor.

"We're about at our max for snow removal. This is as about as much as we can handle with our equipment and staff," he said.

Tomasco said he hasn't seen snow like this since the 1996/1997 flood year.

"(When it snows like this,) you just know you're going to have to come in on 12 hour shifts," Tomasco said. "I got called in at 3 a.m. When I came in it wasn't bad, a couple hours later, I had to redo everything."

Tomasco calls plowing routine, but the plows don't have shocks, and something as small as a man hole cover lurking under the snow can rattle the plow.

"It's tiring. You get beat up in these trucks," he said.

Besides the occasional manhole cover, Tomasco said one of the other nemesis of a snow plow is other drivers.

"They don't know how much weight we have in these trucks," he said. "People pull in front of us and we can't stop on a dime no matter what. Go slower and look out for us."

Flansberg also said that parking on street marked with red, white and blue signs designating a snow plow route is illegal. The department could have cars towed, he said, but would prefer if people would park on side streets or in their driveways.

"We've had a lot of cars parked in snow routes and it makes it impossible to plow as wide as we need to," he said. "It's necessary to have those streets cleared."