Wilmette records 6 inches of snow; crews turn to salting roads

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A truck salts North Shore streets Thursday during the region's first major snowfall of the season. | Tamara Bell~Sun-Times Media

Updated: May 9, 2012 10:11AM

Wilmette Public Works crews, who spent Thursday night clearing streets of half a foot of snow, were still on the job Friday morning, department head Donna Jakubowski said.

That included returning to previously plowed streets that were blanketed by new snow fall, tackling the village’s alleys and beginning work on residential sidewalks, she said. Crews also concentrated early Friday on clearing sidewalk areas near village schools.

“The alleys are done, so we’re spot checking streets and we’re starting on the sidewalks,” she said. “They probably won’t be completed until Saturday.”

Snow may have stopped falling, but temperatures were expected to fall Friday and through the weekend, dropping into the 20s, so the major focus would switch to salting, she added.

Public Works Department crews deployed all 12 of the village’s large snow plows around 3 p.m. Thursday; personnel were activated in the village’s “code red” plan for snow control, allowing the village to operate two 12-hour shifts in order to patrol and clear the streets throughout the storm.

Ultimately crews will have cleared roughly 100 miles of road, which translates to about 380 miles of individual lanes to be cleared; about 19 miles of alleys; and another 166 miles of sidewalks. Plows also cleared muncipal parking lots.

Jakubowski estimated that 6 inches of snow fell on Wilmette during the storm, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone reported more than that,” she said.

The snow’s wet nature didn’t cause Jakubowski’s crews extra problems, she said. However, it treated some other drivers less kindly; Wilmette police responded to nine traffic crashes during the storm, Cmdr. Patrick Collins said Friday. None of the crashes resulted in injuries, he said.