Monday, October 20, 2014

Snow Removal

Here is the protocol for snow removal in my city:

Phase 1 - When a snow storm is anticipated, do nothing to prepare, even though road pretreatments are readily available and on-hand. Blame the cold temperatures for refusal to employ these treatments, but make no attempt to explain what the hell that's supposed to mean.

Phase 2 - Once the snow starts, do nothing, regardless of how impassable roads become.

Phase 3 - Once the snow stops, wait until it is compacted into a rock-hard layer before doing anything except spreading some sand and salt at a few intersections where accidents have already occurred.

Phase 4 - Scrape the compacted snow down to NHL-quality hockey rink ice. Ensure all previously placed sand and salt is also plowed away, and don't replace it. The police will call with the locations to replace sand and salt where more accidents occur.

Phase 5 - Move plows to residential streets, where homeowners have spent hours clearing their driveways. Plow up the compacted snow and hockey rink ice into bergs and floes the size of refrigerators. Ensure the bulk of these ice boulders are piled at the foot of peoples driveways, especially if the driveways themselves have been cleared by the homeowners, and in front of homeowners' mailboxes.

Phase 6 - Advise the US Postal Service of all the addresses where the mountains of snow and ice have been piled up in front of the mailboxes, so that the USPS can now refuse to deliver mail where the boxes are inaccessible.

Phase 7 - Make self-congratulatory announcements on the local news about how you're "on top of" the bad road conditions.

7 comments:

Don said...

wow, that sounds like how my community handles snow removal.

Last year, they offered to hire some of the volunteer firefighters for snow removal duties.

Thats all we need, firemen driving heavy equipment around parked cars

Hildy said...

OMG! And I thought we were alone in our ineptitude.

Mark p.s.2 said...

Snow removal is a modern invention. People would only shovel the area in front of their shop. When relatively cheap gasoline comes to an end (20-100 years) they might stop removing the snow once again.

Charlotte said...

Incompetency is everywhere -- at every level. We used to think of the Peter Principle, where people were promoted until they reached their level of incompetency. Now it seems that people start out at that level, but that doesn't stop them from being promoted -- again and again -- frequently past competent people. And the saddest part is that they really believe themselves when they say they are on top of the situation. It makes no sense to me.

BluenotesBb said...

Do you live in CT by chance......lol. Same exact philosophy, unless you are one of the casinos....then the roads are as clear as a bright summer day.

Stay Safe

Anonymous said...

I have to admit, my town is pretty good about removing the berm they create on my driveway. Of course, I'm disabled and I need to be able to get out at any time to reach the hospital in case I have a problem, so when they create the berm I call them and complain and they come and remove it even if it's midnight by the time they get to it.

When we have a real snowstorm, however, many residential streets don't get plowed for days and everyone has to call in to work because they simply can't get out of their houses.

Anonymous said...

Obviously you're not in Colorado Springs because no one plows the residential streets. I came from Alaska, this is just nonsense. Heck, there is tons of money from taxing the MJ sales-plow the residential streets you jerk wagons.