When Snow Falls In Casper Who Takes Care Of The Streets?

If you've ever lived in a part of the country that doesn't get much snow, a small amount of the white stuff can leave you stranded for days. Wyoming obviously is a state that knows a thing or two about snow and snow removal. Casper gets about 70 inches of snow on average each year.

To be able to get to work, school, appointments, and live our daily lives during snow events, we rely on the Casper Streets and Parks Departments to remove the snow from the streets. The Streets Department will take care of the clearing of the streets and the Parks Department takes care of maintaining city owned parking lots, sidewalks and pathways.

Making sure the streets are taken care of is really a team effort. The city is separated into different 'snow route' classifications to determine how the streets are handled. The crews are ready to roll 7 days a week/ 24 hours a day to get the streets taken care of.

Have you ever wondered what the actual method to the madness was? There are actually a couple different things that factor into the process. Time of Year and Amount Of Snow are the two major factors of how the snow is dealt with.

There Are Three Methods In Which The Snow Is Handled

Plowing To The Side Of The Street:

• Prior to December 1st and after March 15th
• Snow fall that is under 4 inches

Plowing to the side of the road allows roads to dry quicker and dry streets are safer. There are some roads that will always have side of the road plowing depending on the size of the streets and extra space on the sides.

Plowing To The Middle Of The Street (windrows):

• Between December 1st and March 15th
• Snow Fall Over 4 inches

Plowing to the middle of the streets (windrows) is done to quickly make sure there are paths for vehicles (emergency & public) and to minimize driveways and storm drains being impacted with excess snow.

You shouldn't cut through the windrows to turn into parking lots or driveways as the windrows could contain items like ice chunks or objects that could cause damage to your vehicle and even cause cleanup take longer. It's advised that motorists use windrow openings and not try to create their own.

Hauling Snow:

Once the snow has stopped falling and all snow routes have been taken care of, the windrows are tightened up and a snow blower is used to load the snow into dump trucks. The trucks will then take the snow and dump it in designated sites.