What does the term "open ups" mean. It is used today on the snow plowing emails.

Curious...will the driveways and sidewalks be "opened up" with the next scheduled snow removal? 

Tom - Regarding your question about "Open up", our contractor, and others, use the term to define a plow pass or two on the streets.  These are done ahead of any full blown plowing to facilitate emergency vehicle access.  I saw Clearscape doing an open up last evening and they are working to get another soon.

John - I doubt there will be any driveway clearing until very late tonght, at best.

All who read this - our current snow is problematic.  I measured 10 inches about 0900 hours this morning (1/4/23).  There was a layer of "snow" (4 to 5 inches) on top of a layer of ice/frozen rain on top of another layer of "snow" that fell earlier yesterday.  The moisture content on this snow column is much higher than the normal ratio of snow to preciptation (typically 10 inches of snow to 1 inch of precipitation).  I'd hazard a guess that if things were "normal", we'd have well over 20 inches.  Although that might look more impressive, removing the current snow amount probably takes about the same amount of effort.  If any of you have moved even a few square feet of it, your back is telling you that it is heavy!!

Our contract requires snow removal within 12 hours after an event ends.  I'm not sure this has ended yet.  Please be careful out there.  Let the professionals do the heavy lifting.  I'm sure that if you really need something (drugs excluded), you can borrow from a neighbor.  Dave Anderson

Thank you, Dave, and all on the Committee working through this very unusual series of snow events!

The snow is heavy and, being a life-long Minnesota resident, I've moved snow like this over the years with everything from the toe of a tennis shoe to a 60" tractor-mounted snowblower. You are correct. It is very difficult to move!

The two of us have been fortunate to be able to borrow an all-wheel-drive vehicle from our son to get through this mess. I would imagine many of our neighbors would not be able to marshall such a resource. I was also able to take the time and have the stamina to remove the deep snow layer from much of my unshoveled sidewalk and 6-10' of the upper part of our driveway. (This is an old MN trick to give you a running start out of the garage and the best traction as you re-enter the garage and want to miss both the garage and any other cars there.) That was as far as my capabilities would stretch.

We may want to consider thinking outside the box for a solution in this case. The contract terms seem to live a big gap in meeting our needs in this sort of situation. As you point out, Dave, it's unclear if the "event ending" trigger for the start of the 12 hour clock has even begun to run. Many of us have experienced extended snowstorms like this in MN over the years. One way our family has historically dealt with them is to repeatedly remove snow as it approaches the "limit" of our strength or machinery thus avoiding situations beyond our capabilities. This is not how the current contract is written. My suggestion is to focus on a way that we can collectively fill this gap, either with Clearscape or some other concern. These are unusual events, hopefully, but are very disruptive and dangerous to folks of the "vintage" of our neighbors and us.

Thank you, Committee members, for everything you do! May the wet, heavy snow soon move off of our driveways, streets, and sidewalks and onto an less disruptive location.

Best regards,

--Paul