More than 1,300 tickets were issued and 351 cars were towed from designated “night plow” routes on the first night of St. Paul’s 96-hour snow emergency, which began at 9 p.m. Sunday.
That’s an average to slightly above-average amount of ticketing and towing for a St. Paul snow emergency, but the first winter storm of the season is always a learning experience — or perhaps a refresher course — for many residents. On top of that, some of the city’s alert systems kicked in a few hours later than usual.
St. Paul Public Works informs residents that a snow emergency is in effect through a variety of platforms, from social media blasts on sites such as X, previously known as Twitter, to emails and text alerts in multiple languages, an online parking map, a recorded line, local news media and, new in recent months, outgoing voice messages. Not all of those systems rolled out without a kink on Sunday.
A problem with a third-party vendor slowed text alerts for hours, sending out 66,000 text messages on a staggered basis.
“Some went out right away, some trickled out,” said Lisa Hiebert, a spokesperson for St. Paul Public Works.
The snow emergency was declared at about 12:30 p.m. and some 64,000 emails launched soon after, but by 2 p.m. only about half of the text alerts had been distributed. Still, “all the text messages went out by 6 p.m.,” Hiebert said, giving recipients several hours to move their cars.
Another issue — possibly but not necessarily tied to the cyber-security incident that crippled city systems for weeks this summer — left Public Works scrambling to change the message on a recorded line — 651-266-PLOW — that residents can call for updated snow emergency information. That message was not changed until 6 p.m., despite the best efforts of communications staff, Hiebert said.
“We had a little glitch with the voicemail message and being able to access that,” she said.
New and existing platforms
The city added a new phone service about a year ago that sends recorded snow emergency messages to 150,000 phone numbers culled from public records. The Everbridge Resident Connect service sends the voice recordings to landlines and mobile numbers using “open sources” registered in St. Paul, Hiebert said. Everbridge is distinct from the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) used by FEMA.
“It’s just one of many, many ways people can get the status update,” Hiebert said. “Signing up for email and text alerts is the best, but residents can also check out the snow emergency parking map, check our socials.” More information is online at StPaul.gov/snow.
Snow emergencies last 96 hours. After clearing major arterial streets and other designated night plow routes on Sunday night, city snow plows concentrated on residential streets during daytime hours on Monday. Given the amount of ice build-up, Hiebert said the city will salt residential streets — which is not usually the case — and return to trouble spots through Thursday evening, including areas that were inaccessible because of cars that had not been moved.
In the latter stages of a snow emergency, parking is allowed only in areas that have been plowed to the curb. Vehicles parked in unplowed areas may be subject to ticketing and towing. “It’s pretty obvious with windrows when cars haven’t moved,” Hiebert said.
Residents concerned about an abandoned vehicle blocking snowplow access can call Ramsey County’s non-emergency dispatch number — 651-291-1111 — or fill out an online form at StPaul.gov/SnowTicketing.
Minneapolis also declared a snow emergency on Sunday, after a winter storm that began Friday finished dropping about 5 inches of snow throughout the Twin Cities.
Hiebert’s advice to new residents?
“If you’re going out of town and you park on the street, make sure you always leave your keys with someone trusted, because we do ticket and tow,” she said.
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