Blizzard Recommendations
1. STREET ACCESS: First and foremost street access is a necessity. With storms of blizzard magnitude we are at the mercy of the City of Denver plows to open streets. We need to develop a plan which work from streets that Denver will clear first then work out from there.
2. TIME OF DAY FOCUSED ON CLEARING ALLEY SNOW: During a typical storm, we focus a majority of our alley work in the overnight hours, so we are not out with equipment when we have a lot of pedestrian activity. During multiple day clearing events (blizzards) We need to do the opposite, spending more time during the day and resting folks at night.
3. MANAGING BLIZZARDS WITH THE ENOUGH EQUIPMENT: The drive miles to get through 450 alleys is somewhere between 100 miles of travel. We have managed our smaller storms by relying only on contracted trucks and plows. One pass is about 10 hours. which acceptable when the snow does not impact normal vehicles. During blizzards (with heavy snow) our trucks and plows cannot efficiently move through the alleys. Bobcats do good work with snow, but are very slow and can get stuck easily (low ground clearance), which requires you to pair it with a truck to assist, reducing our effective snow resources.
2. TIME OF DAY FOCUSED ON CLEARING ALLEY SNOW: During a typical storm, we focus a majority of our alley work in the overnight hours, so we are not out with equipment when we have a lot of pedestrian activity. During multiple day clearing events (blizzards) We need to do the opposite, spending more time during the day and resting folks at night.
3. MANAGING BLIZZARDS WITH THE ENOUGH EQUIPMENT: The drive miles to get through 450 alleys is somewhere between 100 miles of travel. We have managed our smaller storms by relying only on contracted trucks and plows. One pass is about 10 hours. which acceptable when the snow does not impact normal vehicles. During blizzards (with heavy snow) our trucks and plows cannot efficiently move through the alleys. Bobcats do good work with snow, but are very slow and can get stuck easily (low ground clearance), which requires you to pair it with a truck to assist, reducing our effective snow resources.
4. SPECIALIZED EQUIPMENT NEEDED: The MCA must own and manage the specialized equipment that will aid in the removal of alley snow 8"and greater. Equipment must be small, powerful and easy to operate. Our recommendation is two Bobcat Toolcats. Recommendation is to deploy one south and one north during each major storm and blizzard.
5. TRAINED MCA PERSONNEL: The alleys were not designed for large snow removal equipment, thus it requires a level of expertise in managing a plow truck to navigate the alleys without causing damage. We need to train and retain MCA personnel to deploy MCA equipment in order to have the necessary capacity for blizzard conditions (even when they do not occur every winter). A majority of the MCA snow operate UTV's, snow blowers and hand shovels. None of which are useful in blizzards.
6. COMMUNICATE COMMUNICATE COMMUNICATE: We need to be able to convey accurate and timely information to the community abroad, develop a better emergency response priority based on actual conditions on the ground. During "Major Blizzard Events" (generally classified historical storm events) The MCA will provide a realistic timeline based on the size, scope, intensity and duration of the storm and the anticipated disruption to city streets and community services. It is the MCA goal to have alleys cleared by the time Denver / Aurora streets have been opened.
