MORGANTOWN — Depending on who you’re asking, there is currently little to no freezing rain, snow or arctic temperatures in Morgantown’s seven-day forecast.
It’s a bit of a departure from what we’ve seen of 2025 so far, and that’s a good thing – particularly for the employees of the city’s public works department who’ve spent much of January making a second home of the city’s plow trucks.
So far, the city has laid down about 1,500 tons of salt, which is about half of what it started the season with.
Every member of the city’s 24-person public works crew has logged overtime, with some piling up as much as 80 hours of overtime in a two-week period, according to Communications Director Brad Riffee.
It’s been all hands on deck.
This past Sunday, when the snow was piling up, Interim City Manager Damien Davis was behind the wheel of a plow truck, as was Meagan Deeley, the deputy director of engineering and public works.
Deeley’s co-pilot for part of that day was Morgantown City Councilor Danielle Trumble.
“I learned a lot of the challenges that they face. We had snow plows involved in accidents. Sunday morning, we had a plow truck rear-ended by a tow truck at the bottom of Darst … We ran into situations where cars were illegally parked and we couldn’t get the plows through – particularly in places like South Park and Greenmont,” Trumble said. “We were dealing with people who were recreating in the streets – sledding, walking dogs and even skiing – and some of those people were yelling at us for clearing that particular street.”
The city has eight trucks outfitted for snow removal. Some of those trucks require a CDL to operate. The city mandates trucks run with two people and there are at least three or four crews running at any given time.
When snow is in the forecast, the city pretreats its streets.
“This last event added the extra challenge of the freezing rain the night before the snow event, which made pre-treating ineffective,” Riffee said, explaining the ice was soon under snow falling an inch or more per hour. “During snowfall rates like this, it takes all we have to keep up with the main roads. After the storm when the temperatures plummeted, the effectiveness of the salt was much less and caused a lot of freezing, turning snow/slush to ice.”
Because of these factors, plows were spending a lot of time going over and over the same high-traffic routes given top priority by the city.
“Our priorities are main routes, steep slopes and roads with large curves,” Davis said. “Once those roads are treated, we will move to our secondary roads.”
A map showing what the city considers to be priority one, two and three streets is available on the city’s website by searching “Snow Plan Operation.”
Through an agreement with the West Virginia Division of Highways, city crews also address a number of state routes.
Those are, starting with the highest priority: Willey Street (Charles to High); College Avenue (Willey to University); Collins Ferry/University (Patteson to dead end); High Street (Willey to Foundry); Spruce Street (Willey to Pleasant); Walnut Street (Brockway to University); Pleasant Street (Cobun to University); Burroughs Street (Collins Ferry to Van Voorhis); Stewartstown/Stewart (Protzman to 705).
Regardless of where the trucks are working, they’re frequently making the trip back to the city’s lone salt shed – located at the city garage near the intersection of Green Bag Road and Mississippi Street – to fill up.
In September, Morgantown City Council approved $174,000 in American Rescue Plan Act money to build a second shed on the former 84 Lumber site in Star City, which is owned by the Morgantown Utility Board. The new facility is an effort to dramatically reduce the downtime for trucks traveling from the north side of town.
The new shed is still in the works and could potentially come online later this winter, according to Davis.
As for the city’s plow drivers, Trumble said they’re working as hard as they can.
“We only have so many people who can drive the plow trucks. It seems like it’s been snowing for two weeks straight. We’d get 2 inches of snow, get it cleared and get 2 more inches of snow. These people have been working a lot,” she said. “It was kind of exciting for me to be able to step into that role and see what they’re dealing with because it makes me more able to do my job as a councilor when people are contacting me because it’s snowing and their street isn’t clear.”
Riffee said the city appreciates their efforts.
“Our Engineering and Public Works Department deserves our deepest thanks for their efforts to keep our roads safe and functional, often under the toughest conditions,” he said. “We recognize and appreciate their hard work that directly impacts our daily lives.”
