Royal Oak Issues Snow Emergency

The following information is from the City of Royal Oak:

A snow emergency has been declared as of February 5, 2014 at 10:10 a.m.

Snow Emergency conditions are generally defined as a snowfall of four inches or more and will remain in effect until your street has been plowed.  All vehicles on residential streets are to be removed or will be towed. Vehicles are to remain off the streets until plow trucks have gone through the area. Once a snow emergency is called and plowing begins, it takes approximately 24-36 hours to plow all city streets, depending on how much snow has fallen.

City will use front plows

One thing that will be different this time is the type of equipment the city will be using. Due to the amount of snow that is currently piled along the curbs and the inability of the underbody plows that we have been using to push the snow any higher, we will be switching to front plows. The positive of that move is the snow will be pushed closer to the curbs and the streets will widen up a bit. The downside is that the front plows push the snow farther and higher, so the possibility of snow being pushed onto the sidewalk and further up the driveway approach is a very real scenario. Also it should be noted that any cars left on the street will be buried behind more snow than in the previous snow falls this season, so digging one out will be much harder than it has been.

We know that this may cause hardship for some people, but with the amount of snow on the ground, it is unavoidable. Plows will be working the neighborhoods north to south this time. It usually takes 24 to 36 hrs to clear the residential streets once they start them after the main and secondary streets are cleared.

ROPD will start writing tickets 6 hrs after a snow emergency is called, in order to give people a reasonable amount of time to move their vehicles. Please, do your best to get vehicles off the street as soon as possible.