City Plans To Haul Snow Away In Dump Trucks To Predetermined Sites, So As To Make Room On Roads
CHICAGO (CBS) -- With all the snow building up and being pushed to the side of the roads, there are serious concerns as to where all this snow will go.
CBS 2's Charlie De Mar had the answers for that quandary on Monday night.
Snow was falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour Monday night, and CBS 2 Meteorologist Mary Kay Kleist reported some areas could even see up to 20 inches of accumulation. Near Broadway and Irving Park Road late Monday night, the winds had died down substantially -- but snow was still coming down fast and furious and plows could not keep up.
As they prepared for their 10 p.m. live shot on the CBS 2 News, De Mar and his crew helped two drivers who got stuck.
All this snow, of course, is piling on top of old snow that has fallen again and again over the past 19 days and has not melted with the temperature having stayed stubbornly below freezing. With so much snow, enormous mounds are forming.
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The City of Chicago will begin collecting the snow in dump trucks on Tuesday and relocating it to various parts of the city to try and make some room on the roads.
But for now, the snow has nowhere to go.
"One of these days, it's going to stop now I guess, and hopefully melt a little bit," said Scott Carpenter.
Until then, crews with the Department of Streets and Sanitation will start to address the snow mounds forming on city streets and corners.
The buildup is caused in part by plows pushing the snow to the side.
"The smaller streets, they just get packed down, so yeah, definitely worried about that," Carpenter said.
Streets and San's plan to haul the snow away in dump trucks is a relief for delivery driver Vince Dacquisto.
"It's a side street, so I just walk," Dacquisto said.
He could not get far in his car with the snow piling up.
"It's a side street and there's no room for the other cars to get by you," Dacquisto said.
The city says the locations where the snow will be relocated are predetermined in the summer. It will mostly be out of plain sight so kids don't find it and play on it.