Recent Storms Test Village's Snow Removal Capabilities

White Christmases are a rarity in the Chicago area, but the approximately 2-inch snowfall on Christmas Eve and the 8-inch snowstorm that started Christmas night presented a serious test for Northbrook's snow removal crews.  

According to Northbrook Public Works General Operations Superintendent Paul Risinger, the first, smaller snowfall was actually the bigger challenge, because of the speed at which it fell.  

"Slow, lingering snows can last two to three days," said Risinger.

But village snowplow crews can only work 16 hours consecutively, at most.

"When [a storm] drags on, you can lose manpower."

On the other hand, the second storm—a lake effect event that dropped about three times more snow than the earlier storm—was actually easier to deal with in one way, Risinger explained, because "it came down fast," he said. And a fast snowfall, even a significant one of 8 inches, can sometimes be removed from roads in a matter of a few hours. 

How does Risinger and company do it? They have divided the village up into seven sections, and when snow starts coming down in significant quantity, the team kicks into action, strategically clearing the roads and more, section by section. 

The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) plows county and state roads like Dundee and Waukegan, while Metra crews clear commuter rail platforms of snow. Private companies are responsible for plowing commercial lots, but the Public Works Department must clear most of the rest of the snow. 

The tools for the job are large snowplows that also have salt spreading capability, smaller pickup trucks with plows attached, and front-end loaders that utilize shovels and plows. The trucks are all housed in the Public Works garage—a large, bright, cavernous facility built in the early 1970s as an indoor tennis center. It still retains the old center's reflective lighting, with lights that face the ceiling, not the floor. 

Plow crews work in teams of two, with one plow in front and another trailing behind. The rear truck is often dispensing salt over multiple traffic lanes, using computerized system called a ground sensitive salt spreader controller, which delivers a specific quantity of salt per mile.

When the air becomes too cold to make the salt's snow melting capabilities effective, the spreader's system adds calcium chloride to the salt as it's distributed. So the salt melts snow and ice on the road regardless of the air and ground temperature. 

Meanwhile, workers in the village's smaller, plow-equipped pickup trucks go to work clearing cul de sacs, and front-end loaders, some fitted with plows and others with massive shovels, clear Northbrook's parking lots and driveways. 

Included are commuter station lots, parking areas at Village Hall, and the lots and driveways of Northbrook's police and fire stations. During heavier snows, like the one Christmas night, the front-end loaders are assisted by the village's dump trucks, which carry snow away. 

Along with the equipment in the village's garage sits a hulking, boxy, and somewhat menacing yellow piece of equipment called a SnoGo 100. A large snow blower that attaches to a front-end loader, it can cut through blizzard sized-snow drifts, throwing snow a distance of half a block. The SnoGo hasn't been used since the blizzard of 1999. It was built in 1979, and Risinger believes the village purchased it shortly after the winter of 1979, the snowiest winter in Chicago history.

"The problem with this is when we need it, we only have one of them," Risinger said.

Unlike in the days of old, the village's current plows are made in part of poly and rubber, to prevent damage to sidewalks and pavement. They're also reversible, which allows plow operators to move snow to the left side as well as the right side of their trucks, a feature Risinger says is particularly handy when drivers need to place heavy snows on traffic islands while removing it from traffic lanes. 

During a storm, village crews give special attention to main traffic arteries like Cherry Street, the central business district and schools, where sidewalks as well as streets need to be kept clear so students don't have to stand in the street while waiting for buses. 

Crews also make certain to plow close enough to curbs where mailboxes need to be accessible, and to remove snow from sidewalks in the business district so vehicle doors can be opened near them. 

Speaking of sidewalks, there are more than 40 miles of them in Northbrook and the Public Works department does its best to clear them, including those that run along the state roads previously mentioned. 

With so many sidewalks and the Christmas storm being of significant depth, crews were still clearing village walks the following Tuesday. In order to try to make as many areas of the village accessible to pedestrians as possible, they will try to clear a sidewalk on at least one side of each street as quickly as they can.

As for the inch or two that fell on Christmas Eve? "Everyone was called in [during] that relatively small storm...for a lousy inch and a half," said Risinger.