Things have now calmed down in the Northland after the late March Snow storm. And now city and county representatives are assessing what worked and what needs to be fixed for the next big snow storm in the Northland.

Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert is very proud of how Duluth’s snow plow drivers did says that they did what they were required to do, clear the P1 priority roads. He also goes on to say, “As of [Tuesday] actually we had done 3/4 of the P2s at least once.”

But with all the snow, why wasn’t there a snow emergency? Well after his ride-along with the Duluth snow plows the Mayor says that the Duluth snow emergency protocol might need some work.

“The way it’s currently written, all it does is move cars off our P1s. Our primary routes,” says Reinert.

Reinert says the snow emergency takes cars off P1 roads and moves them on to P2 roads that the plows haven’t plowed yet. Causing issues for plow drivers. “During my snow plow ride-along I’m like ‘hey man tell me about a snow emergency’. And he’s like ‘actually it’s not super helpful all it does is takes cars that are on routes we have already plowed and move them on to streets we haven’t plowed’,” says the Mayor.

Roger Reinert says there’s now a little bit of homework to complete before the next winter. That being trying to figure out how to make the snow emergencies actually work for the community. And also looking at how to get more reserved snow plow drivers, that could help out on big snow storms like this one.

Switching to St. Louis County, they are also proud of what their plows were able to accomplish during the snow storm. They still utilize the snow cameras that monitor road conditions. So they know exactly when and where they need to send their plows. Out off 44 cameras out in the county, none of them failed.

Watching the storm unfold with the cameras was crucial,” says Matthew Buyer who works for St. Louis County Public Works. “Knowing where and when to respond and with how many of our assets was crucial.”

There’s a lot of area to cover in St. Louis County. In total from Sunday to Tuesday the county says that they approximately plowed a cumulative 33,759 miles of road. And with the help of the cameras they were able to do that in the most efficient way possible.