City crews plowed snow 24/7 during storms

For more than a week, City of Shelton public works crews worked around the clock de-icing streets, plowing snow and dropping sand to help motorists navigate an extended snap of snow, freezing rain and ice.

"They've been grinding it out," Mike Albaugh, the city public works department's maintenance supervisor, said Tuesday.

"We've definitely been keeping up to the best of our abilities," he added.

The city owns four snowplows, one road grader and one de-icer. Crews of four or five employees worked six-hour shifts 24 hours each day. Each crew had a leader ready to adapt plans to the changing weather.

The city's snow plowing priorities begin with the hills - including Turner and Capitol - and the emergency routes, Albaugh said. The public works department sought to be pro-active by laying down di-icer before snow arrived, he said.

The city uses an emergency snow route rating map. First priority goes to the arterial routes, which include state Route 3, Olympic Highway South and North, Northcliff Road, East Wallace Kneeland Boulevard, Shelton Springs Road, Johns Prairie Road, and hills in Angleside and Hillcrest.

Priority No. 2 goes to the collector streets, which include downtown streets and single streets scattered throughout the city: Laurel Street, Holly Lane, Harvard Avenue. Third, and final priority, goes to the local access streets.

Downtown Shelton's main street, West Railroad Avenue, is on the priority-one list, but remained notably covered with snow and ice for days because of the traffic "buttons" placed on the street, part of the city's Downtown Improvement Plan.

"We can't plow over that," Albaugh said. "That will knock the buttons off."

The crews also cannot plow outside the city limits, to the chagrin of some county residents making that request, Albaugh said.