Break in heavy snow allows crews to make progress, residential work Monday evening

BEATRICE, Neb. - A break in the snow storm, brought on by a patch of dry air, is giving Beatrice’s Streets and Sanitation crews a crucial period to get streets safe.

Beatrice Superintendent of Streets and Landfill Jason Moore says a slush, mixed with a warm storm, is providing crews a big assistance.

“Things are looking pretty good,” Moore said. “It’s allowing us to move through our emergency crews quickly… This is going to allow us to move into residential a little earlier.”

As of midday Monday, the National Weather Service reported seven inches of snow in Beatrice, with the possibility of another four to seven overnight, making it crucial for Moore and his crew to get an early jump. As of Monday evening, all crews were running snow plows, with a second shift coming in over night. This will allow crews to move into residential areas to plow, something they do just once.

Moore says if the dry air patch breaks, they’ll return to their emergency and priority routes. One area of 19th St. in Beatrice became bumpy, caused by slush.

“What caused that was there were places the plow would catch, and places it wouldn’t catch,” Moore said. “A plow is made to trip, so as it goes down the road, it’s supposed to be cutting the snow, but some places it’ll cut down to the pavement. Once it does that, the cutting edge will stay underneath the slop and slush… More or less, all that was going on there was the plow was flexing.”

Moore expects crews to be working until late afternoon Tuesday, meaning those possibly commuting in the morning will need to use caution.

“Stay back a bit, give the trucks some area, they all have a giant blind spot right behind them,” Moore said. “Road condition wise, there’s going to be a lot of melting going on, and some re-freezing going on yet tonight. Side streets are going to be pretty slick, once we go through and scrape them down, we won’t be able to get them down to the bare pavement. That’ll mean “shaved” slush down on the roads and when that re-freezes it’s going to be a hard packed slush that is going to be extremely slick.”

A Winter Storm Warning remains in effect for much of the region until noon Tuesday.