The City of Kent released the following Severe Weather Update for Monday, Feb. 11 2019:
Current focus, what’s next and how you can help
The City of Kent is committed to providing quality service to Kent residents during snow and ice events. The safety of the public is our primary concern. Our goal is to keep traffic moving through the City’s 310 miles of roads as safely and efficiently as possible.
Current focus
Currently, crews are focused on primary roadways and will then turn their focus to the secondary roads before looking at the possibility of reopening our closed roadways. Closed roadways will be opened as soon as the weather allows. Residents can visit DriveKent.com and also sign up for email alerts at KentWA.gov/econnect to get the latest updates on closures and road openings as they occur.
What’s next
There is a very real chance that once the rain moves in over the top of the snow, localized flooding and water-over-roadway issues could occur. Please use caution when driving through standing water and call us at 253-856-5600 to report any flooding on Kent roadways, so we can work to resolve the problem as soon as possible.
Once the weather clears up, crews will begin the daunting task of cleaning the City of all the sand we have applied during our snow events. To date, we have used more than 1.5 million pounds of sand, 60,000 pounds of salt and 5,650 gallons of Calcium Chloride (deicer). All that sand must go somewhere and making sure it does not go into our storm drainage system is of the utmost importance. We will deploy street sweepers to try to remove as much from our roadways as possible, and our Storm Drainage crews will clean out catch basins to stop the sand from infiltrating our drainage systems.
Reporting potholes, flooding and related issues
However, the cleanup does not stop with the sand. You can also expect to see more potholes emerge as the snow melts away from ground that has been frozen for over a week; your help in reporting those will be invaluable.
You can be our eyes and ears by reporting potholes, flooding and other maintenance issues to our phone line at 253-856-5600, online at KentWA.gov/servicerequests, or via email at [email protected].
Thank you
Your patience and your kind words throughout the last week have been deeply appreciated by us all. We ask you to bear with us just a bit longer as we move into the clean-up stage of the storm. Thank you and be safe out there!
