Rochester is still recovering from a winter storm that dumped as much as two feet in some parts of the city.
Department of Environmental Services Commissioner Norman Jones says they started salting and preparing for the storm on Monday night and he's proud of the response. He says the city had more than 180 trucks helping to plow.
Jones says they are continuing to monitor the 311 call center to find out about secondary and tertiary streets that are still presenting a problem. "We're triaging them first, to find out which ones are the worst, the ones that need to get immediate attention, and we're going through them on a case-by-case basis, straightening them out, clearing them up, and seeing if there are other areas that need to be addressed."
Jones says since they were forced to delay garbage pick-up Tuesday, so everyone's pick-up day will be one day later this week.
Jones says they have also been reminding people that it is the owner’s responsibility to shovel sidewalks in order to make the city accessible in winter weather.
Monroe County spokesman Bill Napier issued this statement:
"There was no loss of life, serious injury or major property damage as a result of Tuesday's snowstorm. Thanks to the hard work of thirty agencies that responded to the Emergency Operations Center and the assistance of our State, City and town partners roads were mostly clear within hours. We remain in close contact with those agencies, will continue monitoring any developing weather and are prepared to respond. We are looking forward convening the responding agencies within two weeks to conduct a post-activation debrief."
The State Department of Transportation says it had displayed warnings about Tuesday's big snow storm on its digital messaging system, located on highways like 490, which turned into a parking lot during the morning rush.
Spokesman Gary Holmes those message boards alerted drivers on Monday, well in advance of the storm.
“Those boards were displaying winter storm warnings as soon as it was activated by the National Weather Service, once the winter storm warning went into effect by practice, we put that messaging out there...that messaging advances as well, the closer you get to a storm actually hitting."
Holmes says the message boards advanced to "poor driving conditions expected" to "disabled vehicles ahead" and eventually "avoid travel" once Monroe County issued a travel advisory.
By then it was too late for many motorists, who ended up stuck on expressways, some for hours.
Holmes says the big problem occurred when conditions worsened, and motorists kept getting stuck at a time when traffic was at its height, and so was the storm.
Some traffic still got on 490 even though it was closed, and Holmes says putting up barrier gates, like the ones installed on the Thruway around Buffalo, are part of the discussions after this storm.
"Internal conversations are standard practice, you know we're having those conversations today, it's an opportunity to review what worked, what didn't, how we can better position ourselves for the next storm,” Holmes told WXXI News.
WXXI's Veronica Volk spoke with some people digging out Wednesday in Rochester's Park Avenue neighborhood:
