Arlington County has issued an alert regarding the potential for significant snowfall on Thursday.
National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for our area, beginning late Wednesday night through Thursday night. There is potential for 5 or more inches of snow.
Update on 2/18 – Several public works crews were out on Military Road today. A police officer was posted at Military Road and 26th Road this afternoon to help Taylor Elementary students cross the street.
Huge boulders of ice, snow and road filth cover the sidewalks along Military Road in the Donaldson Run section of Arlington, near Taylor Elementary School, forcing pedestrians to walk dangerously close to fast-moving traffic on the busy commuter route.
We learned that the county received emergency support from the state in advance of Wednesday’s blizzard. Eight front end loader and 16 operators arrived from Richmond Monday night.
We also learned who was driving all those dump trucks and other heavy equipment, seen on main corridors during the height of the storms. Starting on Friday, on the eve of Snowmageddon, the county contracted with the following companies to provide snow removal services: DHC Corporation, Bell Brothers, Inc., Rock Hard Contracting, Inc., Sagres Construction, Inc., Martin & Gass, Inc., and DRC Emergency Services, LLC.
Arlington’s snow removal crews are heading back into the neighborhoods to finish what they started (and what they did not start) on Monday. From the county’s web site:
Arlington’s snow crews worked overnight following yesterday’s blizzard conditions to clear primary and secondary roadways. Today, trucks are beginning to move into neighborhood streets. The snow operations team will work to prioritize streets that were not plowed or treated following the February 5th storm, but please note crews must pass through and clear some previously plowed streets in order to reach these unplowed streets.
Above: A pile of snow nearly reaches to the second floor of an abandoned motel in Crystal City. This was one of the county’s dump sites, described in this post from last night.
With brilliantly clear skies today, and a dry weekend predicted, the roads may actually get fully cleared before Monday, when our next batch of snow is expected to arrive.
A group of people were sledding down 14th St. N. in Courthouse tonight, just like they were doing over the weekend.
In Pentagon City, however, most of the people out and about were there strictly out of necessity.
A number of people have been wondering: where do those dump trucks — the ones filled with snow scooped up off Wilson Blvd., Clarendon Blvd., Crystal Dr., and other main roads — go after they’ve been filled up? And what happens to all that snow? Now we have an answer.
It turns out the trucks (which have been operating since Friday night) actually are dumping the snow in several parks, parking lots and other county-owned locations, including:
Update at 7:25 PM – The federal government is closed Thursday.
Update at 6:45 PM – Arlington County government offices, courts, libraries, and recreation facilities will also be closed Thursday. No word on Friday, yet.
Here’s an update on the blizzard statistics we’ve compiled today.
Emergency calls in Arlington, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM:
Although Alexandria, the District and Montgomery County, Md. stopped plowing during the height of today’s blizzard, Arlington crews kept trucking. County snow removal crews were slowed down due to high winds and low visibility, but they did not stop their effort to keep main roadways passable, according to Department of Environmental Services spokesperson Myllisa Kennedy.
Due to the fact that it will take several days to clear neighborhood roads, the county has decided to suspend trash collection service for the rest of the week. Trash collection will resume Monday.
Taken today around noon, from the top floor of a Pentagon City apartment building:
Here’s a summary of some of today’s closures:
