JAMESTOWN – Wednesday’s weather forecast is nothing like Tuesday’s, and that’s a good thing for city road crews who are continuing to clear all the snow that had fallen on the area.
More than a foot of wet snow blanketed Jamestown, with the worst of the weather arriving just as morning commuters were on their way to work. City road crews had a hard time keeping up with clearing the snow from the main roads, let alone the city side streets, causing frustration for residents who were unable to move their vehicle and as a result, get to their destination.
Jamestown Public Works director Jeff Lehman told WRFA Tuesday afternoon that his department was aware the storm was coming, but due to the timing, combined with a limited workforce and vehicles, it was difficult to keep up.
“This is probably the worst storm we’ve had to deal with in the past three years, partially because of the timing. Anytime a storm hits early in the morning, like this one did, we get behind on it because of the morning rush hour and other things,” Lehman said. “We don’t really have additional employees to call in, so what we do is hold the ones from the previous shift over and do a 12-hour shift.”
Lehman said that another factor that made it difficult for crews, especially trying to clear narrow side streets, was vehicles that were parked on both sides of the road.
“We were kind of struggling all day with the alternate parking rule,” Lehman said. “Folks were not moving so we were getting cars on both sides of the road and we couldn’t get plows down through some of the narrower streets. That’s probably the biggest thing, so if residents can help their neighbors dig their cars out and get them moved over to the other side of the street, that would really help us out.”
Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi also took to Facebook on Tuesday afternoon to thank city residents and motorists for their patience while crews worked to dig out from the storm:
Most of the schools in Chautauqua County are on winter break this week, so classes were not impacted by the storm. However, Jamestown Community College did have to cancel all classes at the Jamestown campus on Tuesday, and several other organizations also closed due to the wintry weather.
There isn’t expected to be any significant snowfall over the next several days and temperatures are actually expected to be above freezing by this Friday and the coming weekend. The milder weather conditions should allow city crews the opportunity to remove the snow, especially in areas of downtown that see significant pedestrian traffic.
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