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A perfect storm of negligence or circumstances?

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Roads snarled, drivers stranded following snow storm

During the closing comments of the City Council’s regular meeting on Dec. 15, Mayor Jackie McKinney lauded its public works department and Executive Director Stan Henderson for staying on top of clearing icy roads Dec. 14.

However, feedback from Gallup Sun’s Facebook page reveal a disgruntled community with some parents saying it was a monumental task  to pick their kids up from school. Others got into fender benders, spun out, and were stranded on slick roads for hours. Out of more than 50 comments, there were only a few supportive of the road crews’ efforts.

According to the city’s website, the public works department is responsible for a variety of tasks, which includes “roadway maintenance and repair, storm drainage maintenance and repair, and snow removal.”

The social media comments came pouring in after a comment was posted by the site’s administrator about the seeming lack of road crews from the state on down to the city. A later post, written by a Sun correspondent, also created some inflammatory responses.

One reader posted a comment stating, “School buses couldn’t make it up to some of the schools. I saw school buses heading back to the bus barn at 7:30 pm last night. Some students had to be transported by vehicles other than buses. Parents and families were parking their vehicles and walking home rather than risk getting stuck or spinning out. I was driving on the roads between 4 pm and 4:30 pm. It was clear by the back up in traffic along the 66 and people down the hills, there had been no sanding of the roads.”

Another reader wrote, “It started snowing at noon! It was thick and starting to really come down. I didn’t see a truck until 5 pm and it was sitting in the middle of the street with its lights on, not moving. I got into a one-vehicle accident on Aztec. I hit a patch of ice and slid into the curb. The cop just looked at me as he passed by! City of Gallup, what is your excuse??!!!”

For those that were traveling to and from Gallup, it was no surprise that the roadways were in need of salt and cinders come late Monday morning as the snow clouds started to roll in.

“The timing of the storm because the asphalt was warm and then the rains hit it, and the snow came down, it froze and it created an ice condition,” Mayor Jackie McKinney said. “We got our equipment out immediately but it happened about around that time, where there was so much traffic moving around town that our equipment couldn’t operate because of the traffic congestion in a lot of places.”

He said overall it was just bad timing and a heavy flow of traffic that prohibited them from operating their equipment.

“Our law enforcement was out there,” he said. “Our trucks were there, it’s just there wasn’t so much a removal of snow, or plows, as much as getting cinders on the ice. Our crew is on standby. They watch the weather patterns. They were ready and they know when it is coming in.”

As for the county’s roads, McKinley Road Department Superintendent Jeff Irving said that one issue that the department is having right now is that they are down to one plow truck.

“We got one plow truck that has engine issues, so that is out of service and we have another plow truck that was in a minor accident last week, so we need to get that one fixed,” he said. “So, that one is out of service at the moment too, so we’re running on one plow truck right now.”

He added that he is hoping to have one of their trucks up and running by the end of this week, so that will give them two trucks that are fully functioning.

McKinley County Road Department’s responsibility is strictly to maintain county roads not city roads, which consists of 570 miles of road in the county.

“We have our standard operating procedure for when it snows,” Irving said. “We have routes that we try to hit. We know where some of our problem areas are and we try to hit those early on Monday. Some of the hills down south, we have a couple of hills that are always issues. We hit those first. We have a strategy. We have a plan.”

He said that him and his team worked until 9 pm that Monday night and were back to work early the next Tuesday morning working on some other routes that they did not work on Monday night due to them having a hard time getting back into town.

District 2 City Councilor Allan Landavazo said that the conditions were “pretty abnormal” due to high winds, snow, and the glaze on the roads.

“I think that they did the very best that they could do with what they had to work with, but just with the conditions, the conditions weren’t normal,” he said. “The temperature dropped so quick. It just exacerbated the conditions and made them really bad, fast. There wasn’t thick, thick snow to plow, that wasn’t really the remedy to plow. The remedy in the conditions that existed were to be out and start spreading salt and cinders.”

He also said the icy road problem escalated quickly because of the heavy traffic in a lot of areas that were already congested and it was hard for any kind of salt and cinder-type trucks to get through the traffic.

“All your routes that go to the hospital and the public safety facilities are the first priority outside of 66 or the neighborhoods and things like that,” he said. “That will always be the priority that there is a way that, in an emergency, that people can get to our health facilities like RMCS or IHS. Getting people to the facility where they need emergency care and those are the first priority, and then they filter out from there to other parts of town.”

Gallup Public Works Department  Executive Director Stan Henderson was unable to be reached for comment by press time.

In all, there were about 30 accidents reported, in which none had serious injuries, according to a report.

Tom Hartsock contributed to this report.

By Chrissy Largo 
Sun Correspondent

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