Henrico officials ask for patience from residents trapped in neighborhoods by unplowed roads covered in thick ice

“Why hasn’t my neighborhood street been plowed yet?” is the top question Henrico County residents are asking Henrico Public Works staffers after last weekend’s storm.

The county answered many residents’ questions about the slow snow and ice removal process in a “Subdivision Plowing FAQ” social media post.

The answer: “Most roads have a multi-inch layer of ice on them, and our standard plows can’t remove it. We’re only able to use our heaviest-duty equipment to slowly break the ice apart and then push it. It’s a slow process that has taken multiple pieces of heavy equipment hours. We were able to get the primary and secondary roads cleared before they were too frozen to work on.”

The information provoked hundreds of reactions and shares as well as comments of praise and ire from Henrico residents.

Many Henrico residents took the opportunity to express their frustration, describing the thick ice covering their streets.

“The neighborhood streets are horrendous and dangerous! I have never seen such poor snow/ice removal management by a county in my life. Forget all the excuses and get them cleared. Hire contractors who cleaned the parking lots and GET IT DONE,” one resident posted.

“I've been slipping and sliding and gliding across the ice on my street for days. Every morning and every evening, I just pray I don't slide into someone walking their dog or their car parked on the side of the road,” another resident wrote.

“You can’t plow, but you can traverse and throw down some sand, salt, cat litter…whatever! We are trapped!” Toni DeMonte-Rivera commented.

But despite the icy conditions, making plowing a slow process, approximately 44% of county-maintained roads are at least passable, according to Beth Sanmartin, senior public relations specialist with Henrico County Public Works.

This number does not include the VDOT-maintained roads, which are clear.

“The streets that haven't been touched will be cleared as soon as we are able,” said Sanmartin. “That's very unlikely to be by the end of the day or tomorrow. It takes hours for the heavy equipment to even clear 100 to 200 feet on any road of this ice. This is true in all parts of the county.”

Including contracted vehicles, Henrico County been using 110 pieces of equipment since the beginning of the storm to clear the ice-caked roads. The exact amount currently in use is constantly fluctuating, as they're in and out of maintenance. Sanmartin credits Henrico County’s Central Automotive Maintenance staffers with maintaining the county’s vehicles that are constantly in use now.

Henrico County has about 25 pieces of heavy-duty equipment, but some is contracted. The exact number being used constantly fluctuates.

Henrico Department of Public Works specifically has had 220 employees working the roads in shifts. Various staffers from other departments work on clearing county-owned parking lots, but they are not DPW employees. Eighty contracted employees are assisting Henrico County in the snow and ice clearing effort.

“They’ll be with us through the weekend for the upcoming storm,” Sanmartin said.

Regarding that second winter storm headed our way this weekend, very light and powdery snow is expected to begin early Saturday morning and continue throughout the day and end after midnight. Meteorologists are predicting this will be an only-snow event, with no sleet and no freezing rain.

“Looking ahead, we have been prepping our plow trucks again as they are expected to be able to handle the incoming snow as usual, unlike the ice we saw this past weekend,” Sanmartin said. “The primaries and secondaries [roads] will be aggressively plowed and maintained throughout the storm. Next week, the temperatures are expected to be high enough to let us work more efficiently in the subdivisions.”

One Henrico County resident expressed concern about the upcoming storm on its way and Henrico County’s preparations.

“With the type of storm that were calling for is this how it was going to handle, why weren't the road not cleaned sooner, why weren't the road and streets pretreated in the east end is really a disaster with this ice, come on, I'm very grateful that we didn't lose power and this storm did not hit us as they said it would but we need to go back to the drawing board guys.”

Dina Weinstein is the Citizen’s community vitality reporter and a Report for America corps member, covering housing, health and transportation. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.