Coeur d'Alene to snow: Bring it on

When the snow finally flies this winter, the city of Coeur d’Alene will be ready — both to clear streets and for the phone calls sure to come. 

Streets and Engineering Director Todd Feusier said residents often phone in after city crews have plowed their streets asking them to return and remove berms left behind. They won’t. 

Feusier said the snow gates are a tool the city leans on, but emphasized they are designed to reduce berms. 

“It does not eliminate the berm,” he said. “We get people all the time that expect us to leave zero.” 

The City Council recently approved the city’s new “Winter Operation Plan” that covers mid-November to mid-March. It outlines procedures, priorities, personnel, equipment and how much snow needs to fall before a citywide plow will be ordered.  

The responsibilities of property owners to clear sidewalks of snow and ice abutting their property are also spelled out, as is the city code that says it’s illegal to shovel snow into public streets. 

“Code enforcement spends a lot of time on that. We have a lot of citizens that like to push the snow out into the street,” Feusier said. 

At the city’s disposal will be five deicer rigs, four front-end loaders with snow gates, six dump trucks with plows, two sander/salt trucks and one sander/deicer truck. 

The Streets and Engineering workforce includes 22 regular full-time employees, four mechanics, four lead workers, a field supervisor and a shop supervisor.  

Pre-treating and deicing operations will only begin when the temperature is between 32 and 15 degrees. Products will be applied to arterials, collectors and hills.  

Deicer is not used in residential areas. Instead, they will receive sand.

“At 15 degrees, deicer products we use are not effective,” Feusier said. “They will actually refreeze. At that point, we move to salt and sand.” 

Feusier or his assistant will call for a citywide plow when more than 4 inches of snowfall is on the roadway or 3 inches of snowfall is on the roadway and more than 4 is predicted.  

“Sometimes if we want to stay ahead of a cold snap we might jump the gun and go a little earlier than 3 inches, but that’s really hard on the plow,” Feusier said. 

During a citywide plow, operations will begin at 4 a.m. in the Downtown Central Business District. It takes about 40 hours to complete a citywide plow. Once all streets are passable, the removal of any center berms becomes the priority. 

Snow removal priorities are arterials and emergency service areas, such as hospitals, fire and police stations. Next in line are collector streets, steep hills and curves and school bus routes. 

And then, plowing will commence in residential areas.  

The city’s five snow gates will enable residential areas to receive snow gate service, but there is a chance they may not be used.

“During an extreme event, the Streets & Engineering Director may seek City Council approval to suspend snow gate service,” according to the plan. 

City Councilor Kenny Gabriel asked about issues with cars parked in streets when trying to clear snow. 

"It is problematic,” Feusier said. “We do ask people to get their vehicles off the road."

He said they do their best to get around vehicles, but if there are continued problems, code enforcement will be notified. 

“It's a big deal, especially downtown,” he said. 

While Coeur d'Alene has received little snow so far this season, there is a chance of a few inches of snow Monday and Wednesday.

Anyone with snow removal issues can report them at www.cdaiod.org. The snow line number is 208-769-2233. Office hours are 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The city also plans to have an interactive map on its website so residents can track what streets have been plowed and if it can, where it will plow next. 

“It’s really hard to forecast where we’re going,” Feusier said. "It will definitely show where we've been."