The most recent models from the US National Weather Service Saint Louis Missouri show that a major winter storm – expected to bring heavy snowfall and dangerously cold temperatures – will impact the Collinsville region from Saturday morning through Sunday evening.
 
That being said, our Street Department began pre-treating City-maintained streets with salt brine yesterday (Thursday) and is continuing through today. Additionally, all plow trucks are being inspected and loaded with salt today.
 
Close to the arrival time of the storm, a team will be called in to start treatment on City-maintained streets. (Our Street Department has two teams that work twelve-hour shifts, with nine members per team assigned to nine different routes.) Before any plowing is done, the initial team will go around and spread salt on the entire route, which takes approximately four hours. Once the snow accumulates over three inches, the team will switch to plowing – first plowing the centers of the road (typically one pass in, one pass out on every street) until the snow stops falling. Once the snow stops, our teams will plow the streets from edge to edge.
 
PLEASE NOTE: PLOWING IS A VERY TIME-CONSUMING PROCESS, TAKING ROUGHLY SIXTEEN HOURS TO COMPLETE ONCE THE SNOW STOPS. OPERATIONS WILL NOT STOP UNTIL ALL ROADS ARE CLEAR.
 
We are very, very appreciative of the tireless, around-the-clock work that our dedicated Public Works and Parks Crews perform to keep our community’s roads, parking lots and the like safe and accessible.
 
TIPS FOR RESIDENTS:
❄️ Please move any vehicles, trash cans and the like off the street if possible. Anything left on the street will be buried in snow.
❄️ Do not shovel your driveway all the way to the street after the first pass of the plow. The truck will come back and plow as close to the edge as they can get at some point, covering all of your hard work.
❄️ When you shovel your driveway, it helps to clear a buffer zone upstream of your driveway so the plow can deposit the snow there instead of across your driveway.
❄️ Unfortunately, due to the time-consuming nature of cul-de-sacs, they are last on the list of priorities. The plows will open the middle of cul-de-sacs the best they can, but they can’t get close to the edge without inevitably blocking a mailbox/driveway. If the situation aligns, the City will utilize other pieces of equipment to clear cul-de-sacs after the snow stops.
 
Additionally, our GIS Team has been working behind-the-scenes on a number of enhancements to the City’s Snow Plow Tracker – which can be accessed at www.collinsvilleil.org/snow
📍 Streets that have been visited by a snow plow will now be marked on the map with colors being varied by the amount of time they were last visited.
📍 Selecting a street that has been visited by a snow plow will now give information on when it was last visited, which snow plow it was, and how long it’s been since it was visited.
📍 Thanks to additional updates, the Snow Plow Tracker should now work seamlessly on most mobile devices and computer setups.
 
PLEASE NOTE: While the City is using the best data that we have available, there will be some inaccuracies because of the refresh rate of the GPS devices in the vehicles. There is also not a way of tracking/knowing when a truck has the plow down, or if they are out salting. Due to these circumstances, it’s best to use the Snow Plow Tracker as a reference in conjunction with official weather alerts.
 
The Illinois Department of Transportation will be plowing IDOT-maintained roads, such as Highway 157, Highway 159, Collinsville Road, Caseyville Road, South Morrison Avenue and Beltline. Speaking of Beltline – per IDOT, the two-way traffic on Beltline Road at Carnation will be maintained, but please continue to use extreme caution when driving through the work zone. Additional signage has been added to help travelers to navigate through the work area safely.
 
For additional information regarding Winter Weather Preparedness, visit weather.gov/winter
 
To locate a Warming Center in Illinois, visit https://www.illinois.gov/services/service.warming-center.html
 
We appreciate the public's help and patience as we navigate together through this potential storm.
 
#LoveWhereYouLive