Wilmette gears up for more snow

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Updated: April 3, 2012 8:22PM

Wilmette’s Public Works Department geared up Thursday for the year’s second storm, which weather watchers were predicting could bring six inches or more of snow on Friday.

Despite the pending bad weather, the department is in good shape for the rest of the winter, department director Donna Jakubowski said; Wilmette has used very little of the salt planners had estimated might be used during the 2011-12 winter season.

“We’ve had eight snow or weather events since (mid-November) when the season began, and we’ve used about 464 tons of salt. That’s less than 18 percent of the total budget, and we’re almost half way through the winter,” she said.

Jakubowski said crews have already filled department trucks with salt, and filled truck tanks with the liquid salt equivalent in preparation for Friday, when precipitation may begin in the morning, shortly before rush hour.

The fact that the snowfall was expected on Friday provided one silver lining, she said, “because by the end of the day, you know that on the next day you don’t have people going to work or school, and that makes it easier to clean up.”