BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB)- Crews are still trying to clear off the roads nearly a week after Mother Nature dumped inches of snow on Buffalo. News 4 has received many calls into the newsroom with concerns about ice-covered streets.
Buffalo Public Works Department crews told us they started salting the roads on Tuesday but the rain and thaw on Saturday, and the freeze on Sunday, made the road conditions worse.
“It made for a lot of ice sheets of, ice stacked on each other and it’s hard to move at this point,” said Waymon Miles, who lives in North Buffalo and drives buses for NFTA. “I mean they’re out here trying to do the best they can, and we are too, but we would like to be plowed,”
He said his neighbors are frustrated. There was still ice on his road even after the plows went through.
“Hopefully they’ll hit the rest of the neighborhood soon but it’s other neighborhoods than North Buffalo, the East Side needs to be too because a lot of the buses I drive are out of the Cold Spring station and a lot of those streets are not salted,” said Miles.
Commissioner of Public Works Steve Stepniak told News 4 they’ve used 2,000 tons of salt since the storm began, clearing main, secondary and residential streets.
“We started jumping into the residential quickly on Thursday morning,” said Stepniak.
He said they hit a hurdle because many streets allow parking on both sides during the weekend.
“We have two sided parking streets, it’s almost impossible to get down those streets during a winter event,” said Stepniak. “We had a little bit of a meltdown and then those streets started to freeze all over again.”
He said the snow piled up around the cars melted and then ran into the streets, refreezing as ice.
He said once cars were moved at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, they were able to start plowing the streets again. Stepniak told News 4 they have 35 plows out at all times.
If you want to make a request to have your street plowed or salted you can call 311, or make an online request.
