by Justin Kits Hatchet Reporter

Web Exclu­sive

Dis­trict offi­cials were left scram­bling to clear roads and side­walks amid bud­get over­runs, after a record set­ting snow­fall dumped around 40 inches on the city. But though the win­ter sea­son has not yet fin­ished, the Dis­trict sur­passed its $6.2 mil­lion snow bud­get after the first storm that began last Friday.

The Dis­trict has nearly 270 pieces of equip­ment work­ing 12-hour shifts to plow, salt and treat area streets and between the Dis­trict Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works, nearly 750 employ­ees have been work­ing through­out the storm to remove snow from side­walks and streets, DDOT spokesman John Lisle said.

In addi­tion to the District-operated plows, con­trac­tor plows are being employed. DDOT also had crews work­ing to clear fallen trees and branches. DDOT employs plows all around the city, includ­ing on-campus, but GW does have the author­ity to pri­vately plow its on-campus streets.

ANC Com­mis­sioner and GW alumna Asher Cor­son said get­ting parked cars off the Foggy Bot­tom streets and clear­ing the side­walks are the two biggest issues fac­ing the neigh­bor­hood. He said it wouldn’t be rea­son­able to expect the city to recover and han­dle the storm because snow like this “really only hap­pens once in a decade.”

Cor­son said he spent much of Wednes­day help­ing elderly peo­ple shovel snow in front of their homes, and said he hoped to for­mal­ize a “neigh­bor­hood brigade of peo­ple will­ing and able to shovel for peo­ple who are not will­ing and able to shovel.” GW stu­dents espe­cially need to clear their walk­ways, Cor­son said.

“I really believe the num­ber one issue right now is safe pedes­trian pas­sage,” Cor­son said. “I don’t want to make it an issue or call out stu­dents, but I do think it’s worth remind­ing stu­dents that live in town­houses in the neigh­bor­hood that they have a legal respon­si­bil­ity to shovel their sidewalks.”

Many of the unshov­eled houses he has seen are student’s homes, Cor­son said.

Get­ting parked cars out of the street is another big neigh­bor­hood issue, Cor­son said.

“Peo­ple are really not able to get their cars out of the parked spots because the plows plowed a lot of the snow right onto the sides of the streets basi­cally com­pletely cov­er­ing cars,” Cor­son said.

But as plows keep dis­plac­ing the snow, the city has already exceeded its $6.2 mil­lion snow removal bud­get for this fis­cal year, after hav­ing to clear the streets from a storm that dumped 16 inches on the area in Decem­ber and another six inches a few weeks ago.

Accord­ing to the National Weather Ser­vice, after Wednesday’s snow, this has been the snowiest sea­son on record for D.C. The aver­age snow­fall for D.C. is 15 inches, accord­ing to a DDOT fact sheet.

“We won’t have any idea how much we have exceeded our bud­get until these storms end and the sea­son is com­pleted,” Lisle said.

The Dis­trict spent more than $4 mil­lion on December’s storm alone, accord­ing to The Wash­ing­ton Post. Accord­ing to the Post, the $6.2 mil­lion bud­get is almost $1.5 mil­lion less than what was spent in 2007, but more than was spent the last two sea­sons. Chicago’s snow removal bud­get is three times that at $17.2 mil­lion, accord­ing to the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Bud­get over­runs should not limit the snow removal process, however.

“It doesn’t affect any­thing we’re doing. We’ll keep plow­ing and salt­ing and do what we need to clear the streets,” Lisle said. “We have to find some way to pay for it, but that’s some­thing the mayor and the city will have to fig­ure out.”

A request for com­ment to Fenty’s office on the bud­get over­run was not imme­di­ately returned, but Lisle said his office is focus­ing solely on clear­ing the streets.

“Clear­ing is going very well,” Lisle said. “Most streets have been plowed … mul­ti­ple times. The goal now is to get the streets down to the pavement.”

Lisle said that DDOT asked peo­ple to be patient, and allow the trucks an oppor­tu­nity to reach their street before call­ing 311, the mayor’s call center.

“We have work left to do,” he said.

And though Lisle said that DDOT would con­tinue work­ing through the storm, the addi­tional snow means that DDOT will have to pull back their resources from res­i­den­tial areas and once again focus on the main roads.

“It’ll set us back and add insult to injury,” Lisle said.

Gabrielle Blue­stone con­tributed to this report.