There were some historic snowfall numbers throughout southeast Wisconsin Nov. 29-30, which meant lots of plowing. The City of Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works has been fielding questions from residents about a bunch of issues, including trash and leaf pickup.
Tiffany Shepherd is the marketing and communication officer for DPW. She talked with WUWM’s Jimmy Gutierrez about what residents should know.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Tiffany Shepherd: What residents should know is that when we're dealing with a snow storm of the magnitude that we just dealt with, it can take 24 to 48 hours to finish cleaning up after the snow has stopped falling. And so that timeline this time didn't begin until 9 a.m. Sunday, that's really when the snow stopped falling. And we were prepared ahead of time. It was midweek when we got some of the models and they were predicting that we may get a significant snowfall for Thanksgiving weekend.
Our crews actually went out and they did what's called a brine treatment on the roads, which is really sort of a salt and water mixture. What that does is help the snow from bonding to the pavement and sticking as hard. So it makes it a little bit easier when the drivers come through when they're salting in, plowing to get that snow up. And we have been working around the clock since that snow began to fall on Saturday.
Jimmy Gutierrez: The other thing that really complicated this snowfall was that it happened in November, and we were still in the midst of leaf pickup. What should residents know about leaf pickup and if that's still happening?
By ordinance, our leaf rake out date usually ends on Nov. 15. But what has been happening in more recent years is that there's been a late leaf drop, so we've needed to extend the leaf rake out date, just meaning that all leaves haven't fallen from the tree. So that Nov. 15 date isn't really sufficient to let the leaves fall or to give residents a time to rake them to the street.
One of the things that's it's really important for residents to know is that it takes us two to three weeks to complete the final sweep and pick up all the leaves in the city. So this season, the final date was Sunday, Nov. 30. What happened is, obviously we got a big snow before that date, so there were leaves across the city that weren't picked up.
I know some people questioned us picking them up prior to that date. It's just not physically possible that we could get all the leaves across the city before that snow date.
We do understand that there are leaves that are mixed in with the snow and our drivers tried as best they could to sort of plow around the leaves. They were sort of treating them and thinking of them like a parked vehicle.
We are going to resume leaf pickup again. Originally, we should have started the final sweep today but that has been paused because of snow. So just as soon as we're done with snow and make sure that the weather is working with us — it's not too cold — we are going to go back out there and we will announce when we are starting to pick up everyone's leaves.
Gutierrez: Another thing that people have had questions on is the delay in garbage and recycling [pickup], which got a little bit complicated because this is following a holiday as well. So what should people know about their garbage and recycling pickup?
Yes, garbage and recycling was suspended only for Monday, Dec. 1. Again, that is because we are still in a full-scale clean-up following snow, which means many of the people who are doing garbage and recycling are also now working on snow and ice.
What helps is cleaning the snow and ice off the top and around your [trash and recycling] carts will allow our drivers to be able to access it. And then we will resume all collection of garbage and recycling.
For city updates during a snow emergency, you can follow DPW and the city on social media, sign up for parking text alerts or visit the city’s website.
