Digging out: City details efforts to clean up latest winter storm

The city of Sioux Falls plans to have streets plowed by noon Thursday, but picking up snow could take weeks.

“We continue to need just a high level of patience in the community right now. This is a record-breaking snowfall for the last couple days, so patience, patience, patience is kind of the theme,” Mayor Paul TenHaken said.

Many city crews and contracted plows have been on 12-hour shifts since mid-December, said Dustin Hansen, the city’s street operations manager.

“I think we’ve had one day off in that space,” he said, adding 200 people are working on the current snow removal.

“Our emergency routes are our No. 1 priority,” Hansen said. “We have those 100 percent completed as of last night, and we moved into residential zones.”

Zone 3 began snow removal at 8 p.m. Tuesday, and Zone 2 began at 8 a.m. today.

“Our goal is to have the entire city plowed out early tomorrow morning, no later than noon,” Hansen said. “There’s a lot of snow out there. We’re narrowing a lot of streets up, and that’s typical when we get a lot of snow.”

While the National Weather Service estimates Sioux Falls received more than 12 inches of snow, the city’s experience removing it showed more like 20 inches on the ground, he said.

“It’s just going to take us some time,” Hansen said.

Once streets are plowed, the city will begin picking up snow downtown and along other roads.

“We could potentially be picking up snow for the next three to four weeks just because there’s so much out there,” he said.

Many people also need help shoveling or snowblowing, TenHaken said.

“It’s just some heavy snow, and there’s not a lot of place to put it, so checking on your neighbor and helping people is going to be a big theme to our digging-out process.”

Luckily, the next week is forecast to be dry despite not having temperatures warm enough for much melting, Hansen said.

Officers are ticketing and towing along emergency routes but giving residents some extra time to move their vehicles in zones 2 and 3, said Capt. Jeff Garden of the Sioux Falls Police Department.

“Eventually, we will move in there, and we will start ticketing to start getting vehicles out of there,” he said.

Residents are reminded that if they have to venture out and drive to be patient as snow piles up.

“The piles are going to be higher. They’re going to get higher to see around. Lanes are going to get narrowed,” Garden said, adding to be aware of emergency vehicles and tow trucks.

Residents also are encouraged to increase their stopping distance, appraise how deep the snow is to see if they can get through it and give extra time approaching stop signs and red lights. Clear the snow off vehicle windows completely to see.

While it’s rare to issue a no-travel advisory, “we mean it,” Police Chief Jon Thum said, adding residents largely complied and stayed home. That allowed law enforcement and emergency responders to handle hundreds of calls for service.

“It was a busy day for them … and our systems worked.”

There were 194 stranded vehicles in the city and county, and 87 were left unoccupied or people were able to wait for a tow truck, along with 57 stalled vehicles, 27 noninjury accidents and three injury accidents.

“The city did have a number of essential employees we did house at a downtown hotel overnight to ensure they were able to work and do their essential work, and I know at least one of our hospital systems did the same with their employees,” said Regan Smith, the city’s emergency manager.

Sioux Falls Fire Rescue requests residents clear out 3 feet around the hydrants

“We get a unique perspective to see people helping people,” Thum said, adding he saw many members of the public help dig one another out.

“It’s a great time to be a great neighbor.”

The Sioux Falls Regional Airport has reopened, though many flights are delayed. Many businesses also are operating with adjusted hours or still closed, so check first before you venture out.

Historic winter storm leads to widespread closures, no-travel advisory