Some accuse city of being flaky with snowplow duties

In most cities of the Pacific Northwest, a snowplow is like a tuxedo: if you get to use it more than once or twice a year, you’ll be lucky.

But when that one day comes, there’s nothing else like it.

As residents struggle to climb out of Vancouver’s thickest snowstorm since at least 1950, plenty are grumbling that this might be the moment for a few more plows.

“They’re plowing really horrible,” said Vladimir Ostapenko, 12, of Vancouver, who said he and his family had just spent a chunk of their afternoon helping move a stranger’s car out of the street.

Vancouver owns 13 snowplows. Clark County has 40, Camas three, Woodland zero.

The City of Portland owns 55; Spokane, 36; Seattle, 27. Chicago owns 274, the District of Columbia 200.

Caribou, Maine, the fifth-snowiest city in the country with 112 inches annually, has 8,154 citizens and 15 plows.

In a snowstorm like this, lots of people expect the government to clear the way out of every subdivision, Camas Public Works Director Monte Brachmann said Monday. Some call the city asking for help.

“We’re having to talk our way out of those,” Brachmann said. “If there’s a medical emergency, we work with them.”

If there’s no emergency, he said diplomatically, “we put ‘em on the list.”

Crews across the county are fighting exhaustion after repeated 10- to 12-hour shifts, many officials said. For Clark County’s 40 plows, Tuesday will be the 11th straight day of snow removal.

In Vancouver, the city’s 13 plows will never touch most minor residential streets, city spokeswoman Loretta Callahan said. They’ll be too busy clearing major streets over and over, even after the snow packs slowly turn to slush on big routes such as Mill Plain Boulevard or Andresen Road.

“Mother Nature dishes it out, we shovel it up, she dishes it out, we shovel it up,” Callahan said. “It’s a never-ending marathon.”

Big roads have to be top priority, she said: “That’s what connects fire, what connects police, what connects hospitals.”

Most smaller cities are in worse shape. In Woodland, Public Works Director Dennis Ripp said his team is doing what it can with its two backhoes.

Ripp said a new plow, the kind that attaches to the front of a dump truck, would cost between $4,000 and $6,000. With the city already weighing layoffs for two employees in his department, a big purchase like that isn’t an option, he said.

Still, Ripp said, “someday we’ll have to do it.”

Many people on the streets Monday said they could deal with the snow for a few days, and didn’t blame the city for not immediately removing it.

“In an area the size of this, it would take a fleet of 100 trucks to even make a dent,” said Pat Tierney, 78, a former teacher at Evergreen High School. “The taxpayers couldn’t begin to afford to have that kind of equipment on standby.”

But how much should taxpayers spend to prepare for the worst?

Cheryl Kuck, a spokeswoman for the City of Portland, said it’s a question of priority.

“Portland is not a Denver, Chicago or Minneapolis,” Kuck said. “The event that we’re facing now is highly unusual.”

If cities spent more on snowplows, she said, they’d have less for other services.

“On a daily basis, we are facing something more predictable,” Kuck said: “Roads that need maintenance.”