‘Everybody’s pissed’: Snow removal backlog sparks anger in Allentown

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Stubborn snow continues to cause issues more than three weeks after it fell, with some city residents criticizing leaders for a slow cleanup.

A winter storm dropped almost a foot of snow on Lehigh Valley International Airport on Jan. 25, breaking the record for the same date — 10.4 inches in 1988.

Last month’s storm was the biggest since 27 inches of snow fell at the airport in early February 2021.

And some areas of the region saw up to 17 inches of snow.

Several residents on Wednesday called out Mayor Matt Tuerk’s administration for not doing more to clear snow from city streets — but also for having crews work through the night during the first week after the storm.

Resident Enid Santiago said she has struggled to get to work for much of the past month since the storm hit.

Steady rain melted a decent portion of the snowpack Wednesday after little change over the past few weeks. But Santiago said she worries issues will reignite if more snow falls on the city this weekend, as potentially forecast.

“If we get snow on Sunday, we’re going to be buried forever,” Santiago said.

'Shock and awe'

Center City resident Milagros Canales urged Tuerk to change the city’s policies after decrying how cops and public works crews cleared snow in her neighborhood.

Officers drove down the 500 block of Allen Street with their lights on and sirens blaring after midnight Feb. 7, a “shock-and-awe tactic” that awoke and stressed residents, Canales said.

“We recently experienced a snow-removal effort that looked less like city service and more like a tactical raid,” she said.

She voiced concerns that it eroded hard-earned “warmth and cooperation" between the community and police.

Rebecca Ramos, who lives on the block, said hearing “crazy sirens” early in the morning reminded her of the sirens that signal the start of chaos in "The Purge" movies.

“That's how the scene felt,” Ramos said. “I felt like something really bad was going on.”

Ramos said officers were “very rude” as residents scrambled to move their vehicles to avoid being towed.

Some sat in their cars for hours while crews cleared the block because no other parking spots were available, she said.

Resident Betty Cauler criticized Tuerk over several issues before wrapping up with her thoughts about the city’s work in recent weeks.

“And as far as the snow removal, that sucks, too,” she said.

Tuerk after Wednesday night’s meeting acknowledged “everybody’s pissed” that snow still is causing inconveniences long after it fell.

But he urged residents to remain patient as cleanup efforts continue.

He called overnight snow-clearing efforts a “no-win” situation for city leaders.

“If you don't remove snow in the middle of the night, people are mad at you because you're not doing anything when you could be,” he said.

“And if you do remove snow in the middle of the night, people are mad at you because you're waking them up while they're trying to sleep.”

Employees with a fleet of more than 50 vehicles started working “as soon as that first flake hit” the ground Jan. 25, Tuerk said, and many put in long hours over the next few days clearing emergency routes and main roads.

They then worked to truck snow away from Center City and Allentown schools, which were closed for a week, he said.

Snow clearing and removal continued around the clock for almost two weeks before crews were given a break and about two dozen parks-related vehicles returned to their normal operations, Tuerk said Wednesday.

About 30 vehicles are prepared for the next storm, he said.

Costly cleanup

It’s as yet unclear how much Allentown has spent to clean up after Winter Storm Fern, but it could have cost the city up to $1.5 million if it hired companies to clear the snow, according to the mayor.

An estimate showed the city would have to pay about $85,000 for each day of contracted snow clearing, he said.

Allentown does not have the funds to clear all snow from the city’s 400-plus miles of roads, Tuerk said.

“You’d have to raise taxes through the roof” or significantly cut other services to afford that, he said.

Allentown is projected to generate an additional $1.5 million by raising property taxes about 4% in 2026.

“The reality is that we're not Montreal, we're not Denver, we're not a big snow city,” Tuerk said. He said Allentown does not have the infrastructure to deal with regular large storms.

A little help from Mother Nature could’ve saved the city a lot of money and residents a lot of hassle, Tuerk said.

“The storm itself was not that bad," he said. "We got 12 inches of snow with some ice on top."

But weeks of below-freezing temperatures made the snowstorm much harder to manage, Tuerk said, highlighting the uncommon sight of a frozen-over Lehigh River.

“This was a historically difficult cleanup,” he said.

And it will be anything but clean.

“The people of Allentown decided to go on a dog-s—t-picking-up moratorium,” Tuerk said. “So all of the dog poop that’s in the snow, all of the litter that was getting cleaned up as part of normal street-sweeping operations … is now being unearthed.”

Allentown's public works department, led by Mark Shahda, is set to answer questions from Allentown City Council members during a meeting March 11.

It might come after another storm.

The National Weather Service said the region will be on the northwestern edge of a potential coastal storm forecast to be just offshore on Sunday and Monday.

Some guidance suggests a light-to-moderate snowfall, while other guidance shows no snow over the entire area.