With more snow possible in Jamestown today as another storm moves through Chautauqua County, city public works officials say the city has been doing the best it can to keep up with plowing after nearly a foot of snow fell earlier this week.

Mark Roetzer, city public works director, said the focus for the plows in the city after a large amount of snow like the one that Western New York received over the past few days, is to keep the main city streets open.

“Obviously this was the first and only event so far of the year and with the amount of snow like that we got in 24 hours, it is about keeping the main streets open,” Roetzer said.

“The plows get to the side streets when they can. With a lot of snow in a short amount of time, basically every plow has a route that includes main and side streets and they focus on the main first then continue their route. If they see the main roads need to be plowed again they will go back to those.”

This is also something that Roetzer said is typical of everywhere. When talking with the Post-Journal Tuesday afternoon, Roetzer said the roads in the city seemed pretty good that morning and that the plows were continuing to work.

For the first big snow event of the season, Roetzer reported that they kept full shifts going throughout the 36 hour period from Monday morning to Tuesday night, keeping the day shift late and bringing in the night shift early to help keep the roads safe.

“With this being the first big event we’ve seen in a few years, everything has gone as well as could be expected for the amount of snow we got over the course of a short period of time,” Roetzer said.

The Department of Public Works is also planning on introducing brine into the plowing system, but Roetzer said that is not up and running yet due to them waiting on parts from the manufacturer, but that some trucks may have it soon. For now, all trucks remain using salt.

One of the most important things people and businesses can do to help with the snow situation in the city, Roetzer said, is to keep the sidewalk in front of their house or business clear.

“It’s important that people keep their sidewalks clean,” Roetzer said. “Especially when schools are open. We have limited sidewalk plows and people should be keeping the sidewalk in front of their house clean. That is important for home and business owners to do.”