Montgomery County Council members press transportation, school officials about snow removal
“This is perhaps the worst snowstorm I’ve ever seen,” Montgomery County Council member Sidney Katz said at a Transportation and Environment Committee session Tuesday afternoon.
And while he, like the rest of the council members, thanked snow removal crews for their hard work, Katz added, “We need to try our best not to have this misery again.”
Montgomery County Department of Transportation Director Chris Conklin told the council there were about “3 million tons” of snow and ice that crews had to move off county roads.
But Conklin conceded changes are needed, particularly in how the county communicates with the public about the snow removal process.
“We need to clean up the data entry process for the residential street clearing and get rid of those false reports of completed routes,” he said.
Conklin also said that there’s too much reliance on technology and social media for communication.
“We need to go back to having direct conversations about the snow status among elected officials and those responding,” he said.
Luke Hodgson, director of the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, was asked by Council member Dawn Luedtke if he believed the county’s snow removal process was a “success, or do you believe we have things that need to be improved upon based on this incident — as it stands now?”
“I think there was a mismatch in the expectations amongst the public and what can realistically be done,” Hodgson said. “We’ve all acknowledged that there are things that we could have absolutely done better, we have a list of those already.”
David Dise, director of the county’s Department of General Services, told council members that his department worked long hours to repair snow removal equipment so that it could be back out on the roads within hours.
Dise said his agency activated teams starting Saturday, Jan. 24: “We were finally deactivated three and a half days later.”
Dise said 26 heavy equipment mechanics, welders and parts technicians had to make repairs to snow clearing equipment, and he said those crews worked around the clock “for five straight days.”
Among the repairs, he said, were replacing mud flaps, fixing flat tires and repairing hydraulic hoses.
Dise said crews were also towing “trucks and Ride On buses that were stuck in snowbanks.”
“On Thursday, having completed our work, we directed a couple of our contractors over to MCPS to help them,” he said.
Getting kids back to school
Council member Andrew Friedson asked Conklin about the level of cooperation to help Montgomery County Public Schools clear school properties and bus stops so that students could safely get back to school.
Conklin said that there had been as many as seven to eight exchanges between MCPS officials and his agency prior to a formal request from MCPS for assistance on Sunday, Feb. 1.
Friedson, who is one of three county council members running for county executive, responded to that with surprise: “What was supposed to happen? Because I can’t imagine that the protocol suggested not responding until eight days after a storm, requesting help.”
Conklin conceded that the county department’s protocol is to have “an open line of communications,” but there isn’t a formal written agreement between the county and MCPS regarding the issue.
“I would strongly urge there to be a written MOU between (county agencies) and MCPS that specifically delineates what will be done and how it will be achieved,” Friedson responded.
Council President Natali Fani-Gonzalez asked Adnan Mamoon, the MCPS Chief of Operations, about the timing of the school system’s request for help with opening schools.
“We were focusing on clearing up our schools first. … We started gathering the intel and we shared with our partners,” Mamoon said.
Council members Will Jawando and Evan Glass, both of whom are running for county executive, mentioned the massive piles of snow at school bus stops on Tuesday morning, when schools opened with a 2-hour delay.
“Neighbors of mine shared with me a video from the Flower Avenue Apartments where 50 school children were hoisted by neighbors over an ice barricade so that they could get on the school bus,” Glass said incredulously.
Jawando said he hosted a town hall Tuesday night with hundreds of people participating: “People are frustrated, they are upset, but they’re forgiving if they know that there’s a plan and a commitment to do better.”
Council member Kristin Mink noted that during Tuesday afternoon’s hearing her phone was suddenly blowing up over the notification that MCPS would again open with a two-hour delay Wednesday morning. She asked if it would really make a difference given the condition of some school bus stops.