CINCINNATI — The Tri-State may be enjoying some warmer temperatures and sunshine right now, but Winter Storm Blair covered the region with almost a foot of snow just three weeks ago.
Mount Adams, among other parts of Cincinnati, had residents waiting days for their streets to be cleared.
"I don't think we really got any big trucks up here until the day after it happened," resident Casey Young said.
Now, council members on the Climate, Environment & Infrastructure Committee want staff to go to the drawing board to find ways to improve.
"We came up short," council member Seth Walsh said.
Department of Public Services Director Jerry L. Wilkerson, Director of the Office of Performance and Data Analytics Eric Jamison, and the City's Traffic & Road Operations Superintendent, Jarrod Boldon, gave a presentation to committee members.
The three explained how snow response works and how the Department of Public Services and other departments prepare and operate winter storm maintenance. One slide explained how the snow plow tracker is used; residents can track where vehicles have been, when it was on a street and the distance covered by a city snow vehicle.
The presentation also explained how the city prioritizes streets that need plows. The categories are primary routes, such as major thoroughfares and hospital routes, residential routes off major thoroughfares and areas that can "only be accessed with smaller trucks."
Finally, they dove into areas that can be improved: staffing, resources, command and control/technology and communications.
Both staff and council members commended the work of drivers and workers during the snowstorm, who were pushing through 12-hour shifts.
But the council members on the committee had questions for the three staff members, wanting to know what went wrong.
"Did you have an understanding of which streets were plowed, which streets were not, and how you were going to resolve that?" council member Jeff Cramerding asked.
"So I think we ... had an understanding that as the temperature dropped, we had to work twice as hard to clear streets so it probably took a lot longer than people would have liked," Boldon said.
Other council members said the waiting people had to go through was unacceptable — "At a system level, there was a breakdown," council member Anna Albi said.
Watch our recap of the meeting here:
Each committee member took time to ask questions, each with concerns about response times and future solutions.
"Is every street covered in a route?" Walsh asked.
"I think from a technology standpoint, that's what we want to make sure so that's the goal, and the fact that we don't know that answer to be sure right now is what we're gonna work to," Boldon responded.
Although the city has an online tracker for residents to look at, Jamison explained that "DPS is tracking progress in a paper-based manner ... imagine DPS without the benefit of a map in front of them attempting to assess the entire situation across the city."
Walsh later brought this up, questioning why drivers use physical tools when he says the city previously budgeted for digital growth in 2023.
"This council did put money forward to make sure we had the appropriate technology on the snow plows so we didn't need [a binder] anymore. My understanding is it's still not installed, that's concerning," he said.
Walsh spoke with WCPO following the committee meeting, saying the work to improve has just begun, "Today was the opening."
