City braces for another winter onslaught

The city of Philadelphia still hasn’t finished cleaning up from the weekend blizzard – even as a new storm rapidly approaches.

The city of Philadelphia still hasn’t finished cleaning up from the weekend blizzard – even as a new storm rapidly approaches. [audio: 100209TMSNOWPREP.mp3]

There are still about 40 miles of streets in the city that haven’t been cleared.  Streets Commissioner Clarina Tolson says the department is doing what it can to keep people moving as the next storm moves in.

Tolson: We continue to work on the storm that we had from this past weekend.  We have trucks working across the city right now with a particular focus on our residential streets to open them up. These are tertiary streets, smaller more narrow streets around the city.

Tolson says trash and recycling collection will be suspended Wednesday as trash trucks will be converted to plows.

After a major storm in 1996, crews were forced to cart the snow away in trucks, and dump it in the Schuylkill River – a costly and environmentally controversial move.  Tolson says she hopes it doesn’t come to that.