Mpls. Road Crews Scramble To Get Snow Plows Ready

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Minneapolis Public Works staff is in overtime mode converting all of its trucks into snow plows throughout Sunday night and Monday.

Minneapolis' Fleet Services Director John Scharffbillig says crews were using trucks to sweep streets Friday. Now, all 60 trucks need to be equipped by Monday night to handle the snow.

"We had a small number of trucks built up for what would normally handle any type of snow emergency that we have -- about a dozen trucks -- until we found out we got about a foot of snow coming now," Scharffbillig said.

Meanwhile, St. Paul Public Works says its fleet is ready to go, but with a major difference over last winter. Crews are using salt to pre-treat some of the main city roads, instead of a Brine solution that combines the salt with water.

It's an effort to keep any rain before the snow from washing away the treatments.

For the rest of the metro and state highways, MnDOT spokesman Kevin Gutknecht says the plows are ready to hit the road as soon as it starts to snow. The state ordered more than 250,000 tons of road salt -- as much as last year.

"We didn't have a lot of extra at end of season, but we guessed about right," Gutknecht said.

MnDOT says last year's winter was among the toughest ever, so this year crews are looking at pretreating some of the toughest spots from last year's commute. However, a lot of the success depends on natural elements like temperature, time of day the snow hits.

Gutknecht says as crews prepare to remove the snow, drivers can also work to prepare themselves for the wintery commute.

"It could be a little more slippery, there could be some loose snow on it that might catch your wheels there will different types of noises and things like that," Gutknecht said.

Gutknecht says to slow down and add more time to your commute. He says it is advice drivers often hear, but can be hard to readjust every year when it first snows.