Plows, Police On Extra Duty Keeping Streets Safe And Clear After Winter Storms

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- When a winter storm hits the city, it's crunch time for both plows and police.

"The idea is that we want to carefully orchestrate this," Mike Kennedy of Minneapolis Public Works said.

Kennedy says with so many streets to patrol and clear, there's not enough manpower to do it all.

"We only have the capacity to tow about 25 percent of the cars that are ticketed, so naturally, we are not going to get every car towed out of the way," Kennedy said.

But if you're not getting towed, you're probably getting a ticket.

"We have ticket writers and that's Minneapolis police on day one of our snow emergencies or traffic control officers on day two and day three, and they are out ahead on their own set of routes and they are the ones that know if they are parked out of compliance or not," Kennedy said. "So the ticket writers are out ahead of tow trucks. The tow trucks are out after the ticket writers and the plows follow after the tow trucks."

But the real deciding factor is location.

"There are areas in the city that we have to tow in every snow emergency because if we don't, the streets will get narrow, fire trucks can't get down and there is a risk to public safety," Kennedy said.

Kennedy says winter weather is a good reminder that the city can't do all the leg work.

"We went people to partner with us so we can get a good job done," Kennedy said.