Neighbors Help Each Other Dig Out, Plows Get To Work On Side Streets After Lake Effect Snowstorm
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It was a long day and night Friday for Chicagoans digging out of the mess left behind by the lake-effect snowstorm that fell for most of the day.
CBS 2's Marie Saavedra had a look at how some Chicagoans made the best of it.
'Tis the season for piles of snow taller than any of us – Brobdingnagian proportions, one might say. Saavedra found such a snow pile in a Bridgeport parking lot with an item high at the top that might have evoked thoughts of a maraschino cherry on the top of a big snowy sundae - if it had been something other than a shopping cart.
Earlier in the day, CBS 2's Asal Rezaei got onto a massive snow mound in Harwood Heights.
While many Chicagoans spent the day clearing the snow away, plows will also do the same overnight.
But it wasn't all work and no play.
Remember when a lot of snow didn't mean dragging out a shovel and groaning, but joyfully breaking out the sled? Viviana Beruben is still of that age range, and she enjoyed the accumulation in a park in the Bridgeport neighborhood just as she should.
"It's fun and it's also fast with this one," Viviana said.
And Viviana's dad, Guillermo, said she earned it.
"She was off, so she was my little assistant today," he said. "We rode around, so went to a few properties - but the roads were perfect. They were nice and clean, no issues."
That was the case for Chicago's main roads, salted and plowed by the Department of Streets and Sanitation starting on Thursday. Side streets stayed messy, with slick parking jobs - and of course, various item set out as dibs to protect shoveled-out parking spaces.
The Bridgeport area saw several inches of lake-effect snow, but they won it up north - Wilmette, Skokie, and Evanston were shoveling 8 to 9 inches Friday night.
"It's just part of what you get when you live on the North Shore by the lake!" Doug Steffenson of Wilmette told CBS 2's Shardaa Gray.
Back in the city, the more than 200 plows on the roads were now turning their focus to residential streets Friday night.
You can see their progress on Chicago's Plow Tracker online at ChicagoShovels.org. It updates plow locations down to the street every 30 seconds.
The plows will make a bigger dent in the clearing already done.
"The neighbors are pretty good," said Guillermo Beruben. "We tend to shovel and snow blow and open up the areas for, you know, the elderly and people that need help."
Another way to look out for your neighbors is to Remind them of the rules about parking in snow routes – where parking is not allowed from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. regardless of how much snow is on the ground. They'll love you even more if you save them the cost of being towed.
