The first dose of winter weather has arrived in Northeast Ohio this season, and the City of Cleveland said it鈥檚 ready when more arrives.
In a news conference on Monday, leaders from different city departments gave updates on plans for tackling winter weather.
John Laird, director of the Cleveland Department of Public Works, said undermanned plow drivers were a concern in past years, but the city is fully staffed with 鈥渁bout 138 workers鈥� this season. Laird cited a change in the city's approach.
"We have a lot of seasonal folks in the past, so we're able to bring those numbers down and bring some of those folks in house," Laird said. "And also the wages that we pay, that did help as well."
The city has 60 plows in its main fleet this season, Laird added.
鈥淲e have the ability to salt,鈥� Laird said. 鈥淣ot only are we doing some salting, we鈥檙e doing a little bit more. We鈥檙e doing some brine and some other technologies that we鈥檙e using to try to make sure we鈥檙e able to adapt as the weather is a little different. I鈥檝e been a Clevelander all my life and one thing I know about weather in Cleveland is, I don鈥檛 know the weather, so we always try to prepare.鈥�
The city will continue to use the this season. Censors are placed on all city snowplows so residents can access a website and enter an address to see which streets have been plowed.
"The snowplow tracker is not predictive, so it does not show you where the plow is going to go, but it does show you where we have been during a snow event,鈥� said Elizabeth Crowe, from Cleveland鈥檚 Department of Urban Analytics & Innovation.
At Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, there is still room for more workers to be hired to remove snow on the runways.
鈥淲e do have four vacancies with 10 candidates in the onboarding process,鈥� said Megan O鈥機onnell, assistant director of marketing, communications and guest experience at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. 鈥淲e are utilizing a supplementary contract to support snow operations to ensure that we have the right amount of coverage, and this will help us meet the FAA requirement for staffing.鈥�
City officials urged residents with snowplowing concerns or questions to use the city's 311 non-emergency line.
