Snow is in the forecast. We talked to Summit County’s Public Works Director, Derrick Radke, about what to do to prepare your front yards for the county plows.
Radke told KPCW that county plow drivers have a right-of-way corridor where they are entitled to pile snow—even if some homeowners may want to limit that.
“Summit County has a right-of-way in which we have the ability to store snow typically, it’s 30 feet from center. We do have a couple areas like in Summit Park and others where it’s only 25 feet from center. We have some people who mark their whole frontage of their road right behind the curb and gutter with a picket line of PVC pipe or something and it really doesn’t do us any good. The plows will just basically plow those over. So what people should be marking is if they have a landscape boulder that’s relatively close to the road or something else that’s a structure that could damage plows or could damage vehicles if they were to leave the road. Those things certainly can be marked.”
Some items in the front need to be marked—to prevent their being damaged by plows, and to prevent damage to plows. One item you usually don’t have to watch out for is the mailbox.
“Mailboxes typically they’re close enough to the road where we can see them but things that get buried in the piles of snow that we leave behind. Or areas like Summit Park and Pinebrook where they get two, three, six, ten feet of snow those are the areas where those things should be marked.”
Radke explains that if your landscape boulders are not marked and a plow is damaged you will be liable.”
“We’ll send you a bill yes. So, anything in the right-of-way is subject to damage by county ordinance we will not pay for it. We don’t fix mailboxes, it’s just a causality of winter unfortunately. Sprinkler systems, sod anything like that where you’ve landscaped the right-of-way is subject to damage. We do our best to miss it all but sometimes stuff just happens.”
He added that fire hydrants should be marked. If one isn’t, notify the county.
Radke reminded residents that by county ordinance, you’re not supposed to push your snow out in the middle of the road.
“Number one the person that’s going to get that snow is your neighbor. So, if you put your snow from your driveway in the road the plow’s going to pick it up and carry it to the next open spot which is probably your neighbor’s driveway. So be nice, don’t put it in the road, throw it to the sides. The other part of that is when people clear the snow into the road and it’s the end of the day say, and it’s a nice wet snow and then it gets cold overnight it turns into an ice chunk. So, it’s very dangerous and hazardous to the traveling public. It could be you coming home and bumping into a pile of ice.”
Finally, he had these tips about putting out your trash during the winter.
“So just do your best to try to put the trashcan as far to the edge as you can. Our guys are well aware of when trash day is for each neighborhood. We do our very best to not push over trash cans. If we get a foot of snow, it’s very hard to still maneuver along the roadway and still miss trash cans but we do our very best not to. Once trash is picked up, the sooner you can get the trashcans off the road the sooner then we can come back and clear the edge of the road.”
Radke explained that Republic Services would make the decision on whether conditions our too hazardous to pick up trash.
