Side streets in Rochester, the tough part of snow clean-up

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) – The city of Rochester promised to keep working to clear residential streets still clogged with snow after two days of snowfall ended Friday evening.

Meantime city residents struggled even to get their vehicles out of parking spaces. "Yeah, I’m stuck, literally stuck. Like stuck stuck. I need some help,” exclaimed Fearoh Pendleton of Rochester as he debated trying to extricate his car to get dinner, or calling for delivery instead.

As drivers struggled to get snow covered cars out of their parking places, they then confronted the trip on smaller streets turned into hilly obstacle courses.

The city’s 60 plow vehicles, either plow and salt trucks or garbage trucks with plows on them, tackled larger arteries all day but smaller residential streets remained the province of smaller contractor vehicles and in many cases, as the snow piled up, it often stayed there.

"The main roads, a breeze,” said Andrew Trammel, who worked to shovel out a friend on Richmond Street. “But side roads? As you can see. You can see small cars like this getting stuck everywhere.”

"I mean it’s a little disappointing,” sighed Chris Dickman as he excavated around his car. “I mean I’m sure they’re out doing what they can."

The city says it has mobilized its 120 snow control vehicles since about 5:30 am Thursday but it may yet take a while to service residential areas for a second, or third time, as the snow piled back up again after earlier plow jobs.

"We do hear, sometimes, that ‘my street hasn’t been plowed in two weeks.’ We go out and check it ourselves,” explained Richard Perrin, environmental services commissioner. “And we send the necessary equipment to get it taken care of. But, it is something we do ask for some patience and understanding on. "

If you’re wondering about your street, you can check "plow trax" on the city’s website which uses GPS to monitor where the plows have gone, and when. News 10 NBC discovered quite a few smaller streets fall into the “not plowed in the past 12 hours category” but, with the snow letting up, officials say the process of clearing it out, and in some cases hauling it away, is now well underway.

“Try and relax,” said Perrin. “Try and relax. Remember… Take it at a reasonable speed. Be safe. Leave that extra time to get to where you need to go.”

“It’s Rochester you know,” chuckled Dickman. “You’ve got to get used to it. We are lucky, because we haven’t had a lot of it this year but, when we’re getting it, we’re getting it good.”