KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
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Some Kansas City, Kansas, residents say their frustrations are piling as high as the snow they’re seeing in their neighborhoods from this weekend's blizzard.
Tuesday was the first day public works employees with the Unified Government of Wyandotte County were able to fully plow neighborhood routes.
The prioritization of routes is broken down into three levels: 34 hot routes, 34 secondary routes, and 131 neighborhood routes. Click here for a map.
Hot routes are always first and include the highest traffic routes, major collector streets and hills. They also prioritize emergency response facilities like hospitals, police stations and fire stations.
Secondary routes are next, which include collector routes (subdivision streets) and streets servicing schools.
Lastly, there are neighborhood routes, which include local routes and residential streets.
There are 134 neighborhood routes that public works says they handle in no particular order.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 70 percent of those streets were plowed.
KCK has 2,400 lane miles of street to plow, unlike neighboring Kansas City, Missouri, which has 6,400.
Still, things take time, city staff says.
"Give us grace, give us time, but we’re definitely working all around the clock," said Dewayne Smith, the street maintenance manager for the UG's public works department.
Smith says it generally takes 48 hours to plow and/or treat neighborhood routes if there are no interruptions to hot or secondary routes.
He says that’s because crews intend to be as thorough as possible.
"Be safe, go slow, don’t crowd the plow, and take your time," Smith said.
The Public Works' Street Maintenance team has 48 dump trucks, nine pickup trucks with plows, six loaders and one grader.
There are 57 people on this storm team, all who are required to come in, Smith says.
Teams have been working 12-hour split shifts since noon Saturday. Work groups were combined Tuesday, and everyone will be working a 12-hour shift.
A public works spokesperson confirmed this will continue until traction is restored on streets.
Smith also shared how staffing shortages are impacting his department. The Public Works street team has 10 vacant positions.
"Vacancies have been a big impact on us," Smith said. “We’ve been trying our best to replenish our staff. We have a lot of guys who’ve never seen the snow this magnitude. First time being in a snow truck.”
Crews began pre-treating roads Thursday, but because of the magnitude of this storm, they plowed continuously during the storm starting on Saturday, Smith said.
Despite these efforts, residents living in the Turner neighborhood of KCK along South 54th and Klamm Street say they have yet to see any plows on their street as of Tuesday afternoon.
"I do think we should be a priority; I mean, this street is really dangerous," said Jessica Gott, who gestured to a hill she can see from her home where she and her neighbors have already helped multiple people attempt to get up and down.
She lives across the street from Reuben Rivera, who was off work Tuesday but took on a different job title — "helpful neighbor."
"I'm kind of used to it to where I know what we gotta do what we gotta do around here," Rivera said. "Usually everybody gets together."
He says that’s typically what he and the five other houses around him do anytime the snowy weather comes.
His goal Tuesday was to get through the sheet of ice on the street so he could put salt down.
"We always try to keep an area clean, keep it salted, so we can at least get to work," Rivera said.
It's a job he's accepted he and his neighbors will do, something Carmelo Gonzalez was surprised to find out.
"I need to come back to Houston," Gonzalez, who was staying with friends from his home country of Venezuela for the holidays before he was trapped in KCK, said.
He currently lives in Houston, but has lived in Chicago, a city with over twenty times as more people than KCK.
Still, he was expecting to see city trucks at some point in the three days he was stuck inside.
"I need medicine, I need food for my babies," Gonzalez said as he held his son in his arms.
So, he joined his family and friends and got to shoveling, even though things weren’t adding up in his mind.
Just a few doors down, there were some numbers that did make sense.
“We just had like two weeks off of school, and if we make it Friday afternoon, it'll be like we had four weeks off," Rivera's son said with a smile. "This was the best day of my life."
Public works staff says to stay off the roads if you don’t need to leave the house.
For neighbors like Gott, that’s not a guarantee.
"There's seven of us, and we need milk," Gott laughed.
Visit wycokck.org/snow for updates and more snow removal policy details or the Unified Government's Facebook page.
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