Narrow alleyways are plowers’ bane

Don’t put your trash out just yet.
For now, City of Iola garbage trucks are patrolling alleyways just as a means of making tracks for Monday’s expected collection.
City alleys are too narrow to accommodate the mammoth snow blades used to clear city streets, said Dan Leslie, Street and Alley Superintendent.
“We’d have an issue with hitting gas meters,” he said.
In review of the city’s snow clearing efforts, Leslie said “manpower and equipment” determined its course.
“We need more of both, but we are making use of what we have,” he said Thursday.
City crews worked overnight Tuesday into Wednesday after the winter storm dumped 12 inches of snow in Iola. Their first priority was to clear Iola’s main thoroughfares, such as U.S. 54 and State Street.
“And as you can see, there still is plenty of snow to be removed,” Leslie said. Next step, expected today, is to begin salting the roads, Leslie said.
Leslie said it was unlikely city crews would be able to plow many residential streets because of a number of factors, such as cars parked alongside streets and various dips at intersections that could damage equipment.
Leslie said repeat traffic also makes it harder to plow area streets.
“Once cars have driven on that snow and packed it down, it’s a lot harder to plow.”
With warmer temperatures, some of Iola’s most treacherous streets should be passable in short order, Leslie said.
The snow removal task was complicated some Wednesday when one of the city’s plows broke down, “but overall breakdowns haven’t been too much of a problem,” Leslie said.
This year’s snow featured one change in strategy. In years past, the excess snow was taken to Iola’s old compost site near the intersection of Marshmallow Lane and Lincoln Street.
“That required quite a little drive from downtown,” Leslie said.
Instead, city officials directed the snow be dumped closer to midtown, such as on city owned property near Benton Street.
“It was a much shorter trip, and allowed the drivers to cycle back much quicker,” Leslie said. “We’ve made quite a pile there.”