Lexington is making adjustments to how it handles severe winter weather in the future. January's winter storm left the city frozen for nearly two weeks as ice made clearing the roads extremely difficult.
Work crews used heavy machinery to try to remove ice from roads throughout late January and into February. The severe winter storm that came through Kentucky dropped several inches of snow, but then it also dropped sleet, freezing rain, and ice, before dropping even more snow.
A similar storm hit central Kentucky last year, and Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said the city learned from that storm and put more funds towards preparation.
“We spent $2 million last year. We added $2 million this year for new equipment. We've put $3.5 million budgeted. So we find that we're upping our numbers in the budget to deal with this,” she said.
Rob Allen is the Director of Lexington’s Division of Streets & Roads. During a pre-storm press conference, he said they had a solid plan going into the storm.
“We have upgraded, not only our equipment but also kind of changed our tactics a little bit with more emphasis on pre-treatment, when we can do it, and using additives that help us when the melting point of snow drops so low when it's frigid, and it does not refreeze, so it helps with black ice,” Allen said.
One of the major problems with this storm was that the freezing temperatures did not go away. Lexington stayed below freezing for around ten days after the storm hit. This made the removal of ice and snow very difficult. Mayor Gorton said they had to be careful and couldn't just throw their equipment at the thick ice.
“It also tears up the equipment. We have tried to use this big grater, it has a long grater blade. They used it for a while on the ice, and it tore it up, and it's not usable anymore.” Gorton said.
The mayor said she understands that many people aren't satisfied with how the city has handled this storm response.
“People are so frustrated, and I get this, I'm frustrated, we're all frustrated. What we have is an ice storm,” she said.
Russ Hensley is one of those frustrated citizens. We spoke to him about two weeks after the storm hit. He said he saw a lot of angry people on social media.
“I mean, people were very dissatisfied with, you know, kind of how the roads were to begin with, now we're going to have a freeze/thaw combined with heavy equipment to damage the roads even more,” he said.
Mayor Gorton said it is important to figure out how to move forward and successfully respond to future storms.
“We've got to look and see in our peer cities, not way north or way south, but kinda mid-west, we're turning into a mid-west winter city. We've got to look at our peer cities and see “is there anything they are doing with the ice,”” she said.
The mayor wants citizens to be involved in the process of finding new ways to help. She’s asking those who have lived in areas where ice storms are more common to reach out to the city with ideas.
“We're going to take a deep look into what happened this time. We will move toward this new strategic plan for severe weather. I want residents to give us their experience with other cities where they've lived,” Gorton said.
So far, the city has heard from around 50 residents.
Last week, city officials also began A military-style “After Action Review,” which is a thorough examination of Lexington’s response to the recent storm.
Earlier this week, Mayor Gorton issued a bid request for contractors who can provide emergency snow and ice removal services after severe weather.
