BonnerSprings.com

For Colorado native Alan Lapp, this year’s snowy winter hasn’t been as much of a shock as it has to others.

But after living in Kansas for nine years, Lapp does admit that this is at least the second worst Kansas winter he’s seen.

As he shoveled his driveway Monday for the third time this year, which he said was not even as many times as he had seen others shovel, Lapp said he was ready for the snow to stop coming.

“You just have to stay with it, make your piles and eventually it will go away,” he said.

The most recent snowstorm, which rolled into Bonner Springs early afternoon Wednesday, Jan. 6, dumped another 4.5 inches of snow on the city according to Gil Hoag, National Weather Service observer. Hoag said the winter season snowfall thus far is 20.5 inches.

Gradually rising temperatures have started melting the large amounts of snow, but Public Works director Kevin Bruemmer still urges drivers to remain cautious on side streets or hills.

The majority of main roads have been cleared, Bruemmer said, and the focus throughout the week would be on cleaning up the melting ice and snow on the roads and clearing the snow packed in corners of intersections, to allow for more driver visibility. He said he anticipated that, by week’s end, most of this work would be done.

There were some actions residents could take, however, that Bruemmer said would help make that possible.

While Bruemmer understands there are many instances when people can’t help parking on the street, he said that minimizing on-street parking would help workers plow the street more effectively.

Another tip to keep in mind, Bruemmer said, is that as residents continue shoveling their driveways and sidewalks, do not throw the snow back in the streets.

“If it’s thrown back in the street, it gets plowed right back into their driveway or their neighbors’ driveway,” he said.

In Edwardsville, city officials said they couldn’t be happier with the work being done by Dirtworks, the company contracted by the city to clear streets.

Edwardsville City Administrator Michael Webb said Monday at the City Council meeting that besides one plow sliding off the road because a semi-truck was coming down the hill, Dirtworks had been out night and day working hard.

“I think our streets are cleared more than some of our more affluent neighbors to the south,” added council member Chuck Adams.

But the weather hasn’t just affected drivers trying to navigate snow packed roads.

Unified School District 204 superintendent Robert Van Maren said three of the district’s five allowable snow days had been used, and he expects that, due to the long- range weather forecast, there will be at least one more day where students would be staying home from school due to heavy snowfall.

“Anytime students miss school, they are losing out on that opportunity to grow personally and academically,” Van Maren said of how the students are affected by the days off.

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