Members of the Moundsville City Fire Department take a break and sled ride with some children near Moundsville Middle School during the Jan. 24-26 snowstorm. (Photo provided)

MOUNDSVILLE – Moundsville City Manager Rick Healy said city employees worked hard – to the tune of more than 250 hours of overtime among them – to prepare for and clear the piles of snow that fell during the recent winter storm across the region.

Healy recently told Moundsville City Council that two crews started pre-treating the roads the night before the storm, which hit the area at January’s end, dumped most of its snow – up to a foot or more in some areas.

“As the night went on and the snow got heavier, we brought additional crews in and those crews started plowing,” he said. “They continued to work all day Sunday and all Sunday night.

“By Monday morning we had 12 different personnel out, amassed 150 overtime hours. Most guys worked 15 or 16 hours.”

Healy added that workers also had to take mandated breaks.

“Plowing continued on Monday with 11 staff members working and another 52 hours of overtime work,” Healy said.

By Tuesday morning, paths had been plowed through most of the main streets and the job of snow removal began.

“We concentrated on the city building area, the Jefferson Avenue business district, Seventh Street and the courthouse area,” Healy said. “The crews worked all day Tuesday. Some volunteered to stay after and this occurred Tuesday and Wednesday, with crews working over both days with an additional 53 hours of overtime hours.”

By Thursday, street department employees got to work a regular eight-hour shift, he noted.

“While they still worked on snow removal all day they did leave at 3 p.m. and go home. Many of them probably collapsed and went to sleep,” Healy said.

He noted the police department worked as usual through the storm. The city building administration offices closed. On Sunday, the fire department worked an extra shift and responded to eight different calls for service.

“I just have to say how proud I am of the team,” Healy said. “Fifteen, 16 hours looking at snow coming at your windshield at night driving a snow plow can’t be easy. While I’ve never done it, I’ve heard from those guys. But they kept it up and it did what they had to do, and I’m very proud of what they did. I think they did a phenomenal job.”

Healy said, regarding trash pickup, snow in the alleys and frigid temperatures made it difficult to do and delayed collections a couple days. They used pickup trucks to go through the alleys and collect trash and then unloaded it at the ends of alleys into the trash compactor trucks, essentially doing the job twice each day.

“You can’t say enough about this crew and their work ethic,” he said.

He noted some wondered why the alleys could not also be plowed.

“There are numerous reasons why alleys don’t get plowed,” he said. “First of all, the amount of time it would take us to plow all of the alleys in the city … the number of alleys we have, we estimated it would be a two-week period to plow and/or remove snow from the alleys. We just don’t have the personnel or the equipment to do that.”

Also, Healy said, if alleys were plowed, it would push the snow up against people’s driveways and garage doors.

“Third and lastly, if you’re plowing gravel alleys, it is difficult not to pick up the gravel. And if we end up at the bottom of an alley with a pile of gravel, it could potentially block storm drains and when the weather gets better we’ll have flooding,” he said.

Healy said the alleys were getting better and packed down since the storm. However, he said there were still some people calling the city staff and yelling at them to plow alleys.

“Most people in the city were very appreciative of what our staff did,” he added.

Mayor Randy Chamberlain also expressed his appreciation to city employees for their work during and after the storm.

“They did an incredible job during real adverse conditions,” Chamberlain said. “By and large, they did the very best possible job that could be done given the circumstances and with the amount of snow that we received. So kudos to those folks for an outstanding job.”