Lancaster city crews battle ongoing snow, potholes

LANCASTER - After holiday weekend storms dumped about eight inches of snow in the area, the Lancaster Department of Transportation is still trying to tackle snow removal and growing potholes.

With snow continually coming down, Transportation Superintendent Greg Hintz said the street department has had a hard time keeping up with the accumulations.

"This last snow, it drug on and it drug on and it drug on. I think we got more snow than what the forecast was," Hintz said, going on to say that it seemed like every time they got through their snow routes and were able to migrate into their residential routes, it would begin snowing again and they'd have to go back to main roads.

According to a Facebook post by Lancaster Mayor David Scheffler, the Department of Transportation has a list of "Demand Service Level" priorities, which start with major state and other arterial roads, then collector roads, residential developments and cul-de-sac roads, and lastly other low volume roads.

In the post, Scheffler said the department has spread 986 tons of salt and 15,670 gallons of the brine/beet juice solution in January. The department has also spent "$156,600 for labor, supplies, and equipment," he said.

During the weekend, the Department of Transportation closed Ety Road between the railroad tracks and West Fair Avenue due to what Hintz described as a "pothole farm." The road will remain closed until he can get a chance to "get the snow under control" and get out there to get the potholes fixed.

"There's quite a few (potholes) and there's not a lot of people that live right in that stretch of road from the railroad tracks to Fair other than one and it's safer for people to go around than it is for them to try to go through it and damage their vehicles," Hintz said.

Ety Road, he said, won't be open until Thursday morning at the earliest because "it's going to take a while to get fixed."

Following a shift change at noon Tuesday, Hintz planned to get his plow drivers back on the street and expected them to be out the rest of the day and into the night.

Aside from the snow, the incoming negative temperatures create major issues as well.

"Salt below 15 degrees doesn't work very well," Hintz said. "We're using a bunch of liquid on top of that to help, but it still doesn't like to burn off like we like it to. With temperatures where they're at right now, it makes it that much harder to get rid of."

He added that once the snow begins to melt and slush up, the street departments would get back into residential areas and try to get them back to bare roads.

Crews may get a little help from Mother Nature by the end of the week when temperatures are expected to be above freezing for most of the day Saturday and Sunday.