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After Sunday’s blizzard dumped anywhere from 17 to 30 inches of snow in the Copper Country, local road crews have been working around the clock to clean up the streets.
The main roads were open the following day and Houghton City Manager Eric Waara says that’s because of the quick response of employees down at the Department of Public Works.
“There’s a lot of roads that are still one lane but they’re open and there’s other places out there that aren’t open yet around the county, which there is a lot more road out there, but our crews have been able to do yeoman’s work here and I know everybody out in the county has been hitting it really hard. This is just something we haven’t seen in a while,” said Waara.
It took an all out effort from both the cities of Houghton and Hancock, as well as the County Road Commission and the townships and villages.
Waara said that effort was appreciated by residents. “There was boxes of donuts on the counter up there and I delivered a box of pasties that someone had dropped off the other day just in appreciation of the fact that they were out and moving around on Monday,” he said.
There is still a lot of work to be done. Massive piles of snow still need to be moved and there are a lot of side streets that will have to be cleared.
Residents can help that process happen more quickly. Waara asks people not to put their snow where they shouldn’t put it and to give the plows the room they need to clear the road.
“Don’t park on the road if you don’t have to because we’ve run into that quite a few times where we can’t get the road cleared because one car messes the whole block up. If people can keep their cars off the road, keep them in their driveways at least until we get the roads cleared and widened, that will go a long way to making this go that much quicker,” said Waara.
In Houghton alone, the city has eight loaders, five dump trucks, and three snow-go’s plus the grader all working to clear away the snow from the streets.
