Snow management

GRANT CO. - Now that snow has arrived in Grant County, many residents are probably wondering how or why certain streets get plowed, get plowed faster than others or don’t get plowed at all.

Each city as well as the county have snow and ice removal procedures. Below you will find those procedures for each city according to their official city website:

Grant County

Certain roads in the County have a greater volume of traffic and require a higher priority for

maintenance to serve the users. The concern of safety, general welfare, and duration of travel

necessitates that priority is given to certain roads. However, to provide efficient operations, it may be necessary to partially complete a lower-priority road to reach a road of higher priority. Snow and ice removal should generally be based on the following priority:

Priority 1 – Generally the highest volume roads with a functional classification of arterials, major

collectors, and minor collectors.

Priority 2 - Roads with a functional classification of minor collector and some higher volume local access roads.

Priority 3 - Lower volume minor collectors and local access roads.

Priority 4 – All BST roads with average daily traffic, referred to as ADT, less than 500 ADT and gravel roads with an ADT greater than 100.

Priority 5 – Gravel or unsurfaced roads with an ADT less than 100.

Unless otherwise assigned, equipment and personnel will perform snow and ice control first on Priority 1 roads on a county-wide basis. As conditions and time permit, plowing of Priority 2 roads will follow, and so on until all roads normally plowed can be used.

In addition, Grant County has identified and assigned a snow removal priority number (1-5) for each County road. Level 1 represents the highest priority, level 4 is the lowest priority, level 5 identifies those roads with no County provided snow and ice control.

The Department will endeavor to have Priority 1 roads passable to traffic within twelve (12) hours; Priority 2 roads passable to traffic within (24) hours; and Priority 3 roads passable to traffic within 72 hours after an average or normal snow storm subsides. However, in the event of a heavy or extended period of snowy weather, the County may require more time to make roads passable. Time to open roads to travel is always subject to unforeseeable conditions such as wind, drifting snow, and equipment breakdowns.

Emergencies such as power outages, ambulance calls, fires, etc. may take precedence over all other established maintenance routines.

Weekend/Evening Service - Should an evening or weekend storm occur, at the discretion of the Road District Supervisor or designee, a partial crew will be mobilized, if conditions warrant, to provide winter maintenance service on arterial, major collector and minor collector roads only. Service to all other roadways will be accomplished during normal work week time periods.

Accident or Emergency Service - At the request of the Public Works Law Enforcement Officer, the Officer-in-Charge, or the Sheriff’s Office Supervisor directly or through the Multi-Agency

Communications Center (MACC), a partial crew will be dispatched by the Public Works Department at any time to the scene of an accident or emergency to facilitate safe traffic flow on a county road.

Moses Lake

The City of Moses Lake strives to keep our streets as safe as possible. Our snow removal equipment consists of:

one road grader

one liquid anti-ice tanker

one sand truck with a liquid anti-ice applicator

four plow trucks with sanders and liquid anti-ice applicators

The Street Division has a trained crew to operate this equipment and keep the major streets passable. They work in split shifts or around-the-clock if needed. Plows remove snow from the traveled lane when snow depth and estimated accumulation indicate the need to plow.

Ephrata

Following the end of a snowfall, the city's priorities for plowing are the following:

Open up the hills and primary streets for emergency services and schools.

Remove the snow that WSDOT plows to the middle of Basin Street, as required in a n agreement with the State.

Plow neighborhood residential streets, depending on the depth of the snow.

While plowing neighborhoods, the crews will plow down the center of the street. Both sides of the street will receive an equal amount of snow.

Any questions regarding the snow removal policy, please call 509-754-4601.

Soap Lake

Crews will not be called-out after normal working hours, on weekends, or on holidays to remove snow/sand for snow accumulations less than three inches, or during blizzard/high wind and drifting snow conditions until the wind has subsided.

Sanding operations are limited to intersections, steep grades, and sharp curves. Sand will not be applied until the falling snow has subsided. The City will call-out crews to sand these areas on major arterials if freezing rain over 1/8 inch thick adheres to the roadways.

Crews will be called out to assist in emergency situations defined as only an event where fire, police, and emergency medical services are called upon to respond quickly to prevent harm to or loss of human life or property.

The priority for plowing/sanding is

Major Arterials

Minor Arterials with Steep Grades

Other Arterials

Local Access Roads.

Road or road sections that are also identified as emergency School Bus Routes will receive first priority status within the above classifications when school is in session. Deviations to this priority schedule may occur to allow the best utilization of available equipment.

City equipment will not be used to extract stuck private vehicles except in emergency situations. An emergency situation is described as an individual needing immediate medical attention or an individual being exposed to severe weather without assistance.

As a general rule, the city does not plow gravel roads until snow exceeds six inches in depth.

In the event of multiple snowfall events and/or drifting, the City crews will cycle back to higher-priority roadways. This can result in lower-priority roadways being left unplowed for extended periods of time.

In accordance with laws of the State of Washington, private lanes and driveways will not be plowed.

Alleys and parking strips are normally not plowed by the City, but you may see an inconsistency because of private plowers doing this in some areas.