Muscatine

Snow Removal

I believe our city crews who work to remove snow do a pretty good job but it is not good enough. This may be the result of superiors telling them what streets to plow or a lack of money. If it is a money question I would ask what has happened to the money budgeted for snow removal in past years that was not used because of mild winters and less snow. I can imagine it was spent for other things. Anyway, there is way too much snow deposited in intersections requiring a driver to swing wide in order to make a turn. The entrance and exits of alleys have large deposit of snow that has turned to ice and are almost impossible to drive over. A lot of damage can happen to a car because of this. These areas need to be scooped up with an endloader and desposited in a dump truck to be taken to the river front and dropped off at river's edge. At one time, many years ago, this was the process. As far as the state is concerned, there is no excuse for not plowing out the turning lanes. Someone could hit the median at one of these turn offs and slide over the median into uncoming traffic. I have had to make such a turn and it has been hard to make out where the median is because of all the snow in the turning lane.

Again, I can appreciate the hard work involved in removing snow but do not give it a very good grade.

another perspective? LOL!

We live in Iowa! It's a given that we have craxy winter days, right? Thank God we know what to do!
I do not like the cold; makes me grouchy & wanna sleep!
My dad was in the service & stationed in New Mexico in 1959. They had an inch of snow & the town closed down! He was a ''Hero'' that day! While others put chains on their tires, he ''bravely'' drove people to work & appointments. My dad had a great day & was able to visit with people from all walks of life that day!
There is another spin on this? We were lucky enough to get snow, some states had devastating tornadoes. I choose the snow?

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Here's a little perspective for you. There are 12 full time people dedicated to snow removal/street repair in the city of Muscatine, that is 6 people per 12 hour shift. Muscatine has roughly 115 miles of streets, I don't believe that includes the miles of alleys we have. Even at their best, the city only has available 9 trucks (snowplows) to use to clean the streets.

These trucks can only plow so fast, in most cases they only run around 5 mph tops. Running much faster than that, and people bitch all over town about snow being thrown on their sidewalks. Snow as deep as this is has it's extra problems, the snow is actually heavy enough to push the trucks around, you're actually driving with the steering wheel turned to the right just to go straight down the road.

It amazes me how people who have no clue what it takes to do this job, have all the answers to the problems. By the way, I know the plow drivers really appreciate all you people leaving your cars parked in the way on the streets, just adds more time to the clean up. I personally think the people of this town are way too spoiled, like someone else said, try driving around Davenport even a week from now, it will be far worse than here I guarantee you.

YOU GO WINGIT!

''There are 12 full time people dedicated to snow removal/street repair in the city of Muscatine, that is 6 people per 12 hour shift''.
Those 12 people are leaving their families to clear the streets for all of us. THEY know first-hand the problems you mentioned, wingit! Thanks to the snow removal crews & Thanks for sharingtheir challenges
with us!
We appreciate the job they are doing. I feel the need to mention our garbage collectors as well? They are facing all of our challenges with the cold & snow, and still trying to get their job done. WTG ALL! Patience is a virtue. Our recent circumstances call for patience, don't they?
Our town was smothered in snow, not devastastated by tornadoes. We didn't have an ice storm to take away our electricity, our cable tv, computers, etc., still got roofs over our head with heat to warm us. Life is good! Trouble with the roads? Patience...give 'em a chance. Life is good, isn't it? :-)