UPDATE, 11:50am Friday, February 14: Judy Mueller, head of Charlottesville’s public works department, says all major arterials are plowed within the city limits, and plow operators are “about 40 percent into the neighborhoods.” The city has had 40 workers driving 31 plows on two 12-hour shifts since Wednesday, she said, and each is assigned a route.
Narrower neighborhood streets can take longer to get to, because they often have to be cleared with pickup trucks instead of heavy-duty plows, Mueller said, but with warmer temperatures and sunshine today, she expects nearly everything to be plowed by the end of the day today.
“The best thing that happened to us is that people stayed home,” she said of the storm response. “I’ve been here 28 years, and this is the best time that people have really listened when we said, ‘Please don’t go out in the streets.’ It makes it so much better for us, and we can be so much more effective.”
UPDATE, 10am Friday, February 14: Here’s the latest as we enter day two of snowstorm aftermath. Tweet road conditions to @cvillenews_desk.
- Charlottesville City and Albemarle County offices are opening at 10:30am today.
- The Albemarle County and Charlottesville circuit courts and the court clerk’s offices are closed.
- PVCC is closed.
- UVA is closed, and the UVA Medical Center is operating on a modified schedule: Outpatient clinics will open at 1pm; UVA Imaging will open at 8:30am; all other areas will operate on their normal schedule, including the Outpatient Surgery Center, Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center (including clinics), Continuum Home Health, Dialysis, Heart, Endoscopy and Interventional Radiology. Non-designated employees do not report.
9am Thursday, February 13: Charlottesville, Albemarle, and surrounding areas are digging out in the tapering wake of a major winter storm that has left behind about a foot of snow across Central Virginia. Government offices are closed in the city and county Thursday, and officials are urging residents to stay off the roads.
In Charlottesville, which got about 9 inches of snow, major routes were plowed but still covered with packed snow as of Thursday morning, and side streets were still covered. According to the National Weather Service, the area is expected to get several more inches of snow before the storm peters out around 10pm Thursday. The good news for those anxious to get back to business as usual: Friday will be sunny with highs in the lower 40s.
City, county, and UVA are offering regular updates via the regional Community Emergency Information website.
Here’s an update from the regional Emergency Operations Center as of noon:
“There are no power outages to report at this time. Primary roads are in moderate condition; secondary roads and neighborhood roads are severe. Community members are encouraged to stay home and off the roads to allow VDOT, Public Works and contractor crews can clear the roads. There is potential for additional snow accumulations this afternoon. According to National Weather Service in Sterling, the band of precipitation could bring an additional 1-3 inches across Charlottesville/Albemarle. Timing for that is between 2:00 – 6:00 this afternoon. Be alert to changing conditions.”
Virginia State Police say they have fielded 3,348 calls for service since the snow started falling yesterday afternoon, and have responded to 995 crashes and 904 disabled vehicles across the Commonwealth.
Below are some staff and reader-submitted photos of the storm’s aftermath. Send your snapshots to news@c-ville.com, along with your name.
