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City not letting snow piles go to waste

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by Sia Nyorkor

KWCH 12 Eyewitness News

5:26 PM CST, February 22, 2013

(WICHITA, Kan.)

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The record winter storm system brought relief for the drought-stricken state. The 14.2" of snow that fell on the Wichita area over Wednesday and Thursday is equivalent to 1.82" of rain.

 

The city has a plan.

Clear out all of the main roads so that people can start to move again.

"It's not too bad, you just gotta be careful," says Phil Richardson.


"The main roads are nice but the neighborhoods are scary...I got centered on a snow drift," says Lisa Wadsworth.

Public Works crews are concentrating on getting the main roads cleared.  Since Thursday night, crews have dumped 500 truck loads of snow here in this city owned lot. All of the snow is from the downtown area.

"There's not enough room in the downtown area to be able to accommodate the buildings that are built to where the sidewalks start to where the sidewalks end, there's simply no place to store this amount of snow downtown without taking up parking places," says Joe Pajory, director of Wichita Public Works.

The snow will not go to waste.  Crews hope to replenish the trickling Arkansas River with that precipitation.  The snow will not be dumped directly into the river because of the salt and sand but the snow will melt into the water and leave behind the unwanted chemicals.


Kansas Department of Transportation crews pushed most of the snow off roadways, down into ditches. But the snow was hauled off elevated roadways and placed near trees and other vegetation in downtown Wichita.

No snow piles to go to waste