Snow Operations Update - Wednesday, February 5, 8:30pm

A full Public Works road crew will continue working overnight making progress in residential areas, with the help of several other City departments pitching in equipment and personnel. Priority roads are still packed with snow, but plows have made main roads passable, and are now focused on making as much progress in residential areas as possible. Customers should use winter driving precautions as gusting winds and light drifting snow can deteriorate passable conditions quickly.

The residential efforts have had a special focus on trash collection routes that have fallen behind schedule due to the winter weather, starting first with Tuesday collection routes, and then moving on to Wednesday, and so on. Customers can track the progress of snow removal in residential areas by sub-district at www.comosnow.com.

Trash collection crews will resume service tomorrow, starting with Tuesday's collection routes and moving into Wednesday's collection routes as well to try to get back on schedule. If crews can't reach all of Wednesday's collections by end of day on Thursday, they will pick up first thing on Friday morning and continue the rest of the collection routes about one day delayed for the rest of the week. Customers are asked to place trash bags in a location that is clearly visible and easily accessible to crews, and not in an area that may become covered in snow if plows come through.

The parking ban on priority routes has been lifted as plow crews completed their work on 1st and 2nd priority routes this afternoon. Customers can now safely move their vehicles back to their normal parking spots. Columbia Public Works sincerely thanks customers for moving their cars and helping crews work faster on priority routes.

Customers that violated the no-parking ordinance and may have gotten their car towed can call the Columbia Police Department at their non-emergency number (874-7652) and press zero to speak with the operator and find out where their car was towed.

Customers can get more information, updates on road conditions and the City's snow management efforts at www.comosnow.com, and on the Public Works Facebook and Twitter pages. If customers can see that plows have been working on residential streets in their area and feel that their area has been missed, they can email the Public Works Department at [email protected]. Customers are asked to be patient as crews are working very hard to reach all residential areas as soon as possible, and to track the progress in their sub-districts at www.comosnow.com.