The City of Norfolk Street Division is getting ready for the snow season. The 2021 Snow and Ice Plan was presented to the city council Monday night as well as new snow emergency routes.

Norfolk’s street crews plow 489 lane miles of streets and alleys and 75 lane miles of emergency routes. The City's snow removal plan entails that since the streets can't be adequately cleared when vehicles are parked on the roadway a snow emergency is declared by the City when a lot of snow is accumulating or has been forecast.

The snow emergency will be announced on local media and posted on the City’s social media accounts and means that all residents need to then park their vehicles on the even numbered side of the street so that more of the street can be cleared. There are also emergency snow routes where no vehicles are allowed to park on either side of the street.

These routes are designed so the traveling public shouldn’t have to travel more than six blocks to have a plowed road, and they enable police and fire vehicles to have clear access to within three blocks of any home in Norfolk. The first routes in the city to be cleared will be the snow emergency routes.

When there is large amounts of snow forecasted, the Street Division will operate with enhanced snow removal operations. An “A” shift will operate from 2:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and a “B” shift will operate from 3:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. with eight additional plow operators.

Residents can call the City Snow Number at 402-844-2299 to know when a snow emergency is in effect or not and can sign up for Norfolk Emergency Text Alerts at https://norfolkne.gov/pay-and-apply/sign-up-for/emergency-alerts.html or by texting norfolkalerts to the number 74121, to receive all emergency text alerts from the City of Norfolk.

The new snow emergency routes can be found here.