Plowing Through Harrison West

City of Columbus Warrior Watch Map

With our first major snowfalls of the year in recent weeks, residents of Harrison West and the surrounding neighborhoods may have noticed an increase in city snow-plow activity. Along with increased attention to our neighborhood, the city now offers a way for residents to track snow-plow activity and see which streets throughout the city have been plowed.

This season, thee city of Columbus launched “Warrior Watch,” a plow tracking system using GPS and Esri software. Warrior Watch gives residents nearly real-time information about where snow plows have been, when they were there, and even if the plow is up or down on those streets. Residents can also see what priority their street is when the plowing process begins. Most of the streets in Harrison West are priority 2 or 3, which includes collector and residential streets.

Increased Resources

photo by 10tv.com

The city plow trucks may be reaching more Harrison West streets because of the increase in the city’s snow-plow fleet, including 29 pickup trucks hitting side streets and small tractors used on narrow streets like those in German Village (and Harrison West). Additional plow resources include:

• The city increased its fleet of heavy-duty snow-plow trucks to 79. More trucks have been ordered and will be delivered in the coming months, bringing the total number of heavy-duty snow-plow trucks to 99 by winter’s end.
• An additional 46 trucks are available to assist in extreme winter weather conditions.
• The city of Columbus has a core of 114 equipment operators who serve as our Snow Warriors.
• In addition, other city employees in the departments of Public Service, Public Utilities, and Recreation and Parks are cross-trained to drive snow-plow trucks as needed during heavy snowstorms. With this additional, as-needed staff, the total number of city employees who can be called on to help during extreme winter weather conditions rises to more than 300.

How Harrison West Residents Can Help

Residents can do their part to help the Snow Warriors in a few ways:

• Avoid passing snow-plow trucks; the drivers cannot always see a smaller car about to pass.
• When possible, park vehicles in driveways or parking lots and off streets to give plow trucks room to plow.
• When the snow begins to melt, clear snow from in front of catch basins by shoveling the snow into storm sewers. The heat of the storm sewers will melt the snow and allow other melting snow and ice to flow freely into the storms sewers.

We hope won’t have too many heavy snow days this winter, but when we do, residents will be able to track the plowing processes throughout the city and our neighborhood. For more information on the city’s snow-removal systems, please visit: http://columbus.gov/snow/.

Print Friendly