Peoria snow removal crews continue to work on clearing city streets after Winter Storm Landon moved through the area over the past two days.
Public Works Deputy Director Sie Maroon says pavement on the primary streets is starting to show through in some places and trucks began clearing residential neighborhoods early Thursday morning.
“We're making quite a bit of progress, although it may not be fast enough for the for people that live here and are trying to get out of their driveways,” said Maroon. “As of last night, we had all the main arterial streets plowed curb-to-curb again for a final time for right now. They were treated with material and they are in really good shape in terms of travel, compared to what kind of snow we just received.”
According to the National Weather Service, parts of Greater Peoria received more than a foot of snow over the past two days. Maroon said a lull in the snowfall Wednesday evening aided their efforts tremendously.
“That made a huge difference in our snow clearing process,” he said. “We were able to spend more time doing what we needed to do to get the main arterials cleaned up so that we can have some safer travel today.”
Peoria Mayor Rita Ali issued an emergency declaration on Wednesday morning and a parking ban has been extended until 8 a.m. Friday, although a collision alert was lifted shortly before 10:30 a.m. Thursday. Several closures and cancellations continue as well.
Peoria Public Schools declared e-learning for a third consecutive day on Friday out of travel and safety concerns. But other institutions, like Bradley University, announced a return to normal operations starting Friday.
Trash collection resumed Thursday in the city of Peoria. Collection will be delayed by one day for the rest of the week.
Maroon said they hope to have all the side streets cleared by late Thursday evening or possibly sometime overnight. He said one challenge they are facing comes from gusting winds.
“We have some drifting out north of Peoria and in the northwest part of town,” he said. “I think we're going to get some pretty good wind gusts later on today, so that will be a challenge throughout the day.”
While not much more snow is expected in Peoria, Maroon said they still have a lot of work ahead.
“We've got some cleanup to do. We got some alleys to push to get open so that the garbage trucks can get through,” he said. “Especially with the cold temperatures that are coming in the next day or two, the single digits, then we start to get the refreeze and that's a problem. That's the challenge of making sure that the main arterials are as clear and clean as possible. And in that case, we've got plenty of material that we can utilize that as well.”
WCBU's Tim Shelley contributed to this story.
