Southern cities get creative to clear leftover snow and ice after rare winter storm
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Days after a winter storm dropped ice and record-breaking snow, cleanup efforts were underway Thursday in several major Southern cities such as New Orleans, where crews were removing snow the same way they remove trash, drink cups and plastic beads after Mardi Gras.
Temperatures were gradually rising across the U.S. South, bringing hopes that remaining snow and ice would melt away. “We have to be honest with ourselves — we’re from Louisiana, we know crawfish, we know football, but we don’t really know snow and ice and that’s okay,” said Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development spokesperson Daniel Gitlin. “It’s going to go away and we’re better off letting Mother Nature do what she needs to do right now.”.
Up to 200 miles (320 kilometers) of interstate was expected to remain closed until Friday due to treacherous patches of black ice, Gitlin said. Louisiana has nearly run out of its salt supply after treating roads, he added. In the Big Easy, a private waste management firm has been contracted to repurpose its equipment that's typically used to clean up Mardi Gras beads and cups to clear snow from the streets.
IV Waste President Sidney Torres said his company has deployed a 4,000-gallon (15,000-litre) “flusher” truck to spray water on the ground to soften the ice for removal in the historic and festive French Quarter. The truck normally sprays lemon-scented fragrance “to get rid of that funky liquor, urine, puke smell from the night before,” Torres said. “We’re finding new solutions and better techniques to dealing with this.”.
