A helping hand

Post Falls, Idaho, has developed a simple, low-cost method for removing snow berms from disabled and elderly residents’ driveways. The city places reflective aluminum signs in the yards of those who register for the free serv-ice; as crews plow city streets, they remove the berms from homes marked with the signs.

The city began using the signs several years ago, when it made some improvements to its snow-berm removal service. Before the changes, a manager from the Street Division would drive a small snowplow around the city after crews had plowed the streets. Using a list of the homes of disabled and elderly residents, he would remove the berms from their properties.

There were several drawbacks to that method, says Jim Porter, superintendent of the Street and Fleet Division. First of all, it took too much time. “It was so time-consuming and inefficient that [the manager] was spending a 10-hour day doing nothing but [removing the berms],” he says. The problem grew worse as the city’s total amount of roads doubled over the years.

Secondly, the time it took for the manager to clear the berms sometimes created problems for the disabled and elderly residents. The manager typically would reach the homes between one and four hours after the street crews had plowed the roads. “If any elderly person had to go to the doctor, and their berm wasn’t removed right [after the streets had been plowed], they might panic,” Porter says.

Maintaining an up-to-date list of residents who could not clear the berms by themselves was another problem. “People would move, or they would pass away, and somebody else would move in to their house,” Porter says. “All of a sudden, we’re removing the berm from the home of a perfectly capable 25-year-old man.”

To address those problems, Post Falls changed its procedures in the winter of 2000-2001. Now, instead of one person criss-crossing the city to remove the berms hours after the streets have been cleared, Post Fall’s nine snowplow crews get rid of the mounds while they are on their routes, which improves operating efficiency and ensures the berms are removed in a timely manner.

The program also ensures that the city is not servicing the home of someone who is capable of removing the berm himself. To participate in the program, disabled and elderly residents must register with the city, and they must re-register every subsequent year they want to be enrolled.

Each September, the city begins advertising the service in the local newspaper and on the city-owned cable television station. A month later, Street and Fleet Division employees place reflective aluminum markers near the driveways of those who have registered for the service, although residents can enroll in the program throughout the winter. “We put [the markers in] as requests come in, even as late as January and February,” Porter says. In April, the city takes down the markers, which consist of 4-inch-by-6-inch reflective aluminum signs attached to 4-foot metal posts. Last winter, 129 residents signed up for the service.

Post Falls paid about $400 for the materials needed to make 120 signs, which the city re-uses each winter. The annual costs of the program, which include labor and the occasional purchase of new sign material, is approximately $1,000, according to Porter.