Ice Storm 2011

Some folks have called us (both customers and others who are just curious) asking how we were able to get rid of all the ice that fell last week. Here is an exerpt from a letter we provided to our commercial customers, explaining some of the challenges of trying to rid parking lots and sidewalks of ice.

"The storm started on 2/1/11 with heavy freezing rain and cold temperatures. Typically, when freezing rain occurs, it is not nearly as difficult to manage because temperatures are around freezing (32F) and sometimes you only get freezing on tree branches and power lines because the blacktop stays above freezing from ambient warming, OR if it does freeze on the surface, deicing material only has to “raise” the freezing point of the liquid a few degrees to turn from frozen precipitation to water. However, with temperatures in the low 20s on 2/1, we had not only a considerable gap between pavement temperatures and the freezing mark, but also a very heavy coating of ice to melt off. In some spots, the initial ice was as much as ¾” thick, and everywhere else it was at least ½” thick. To further understand this, it is helpful to understand that when it snows, ratios of “water” to snow is usually between 10:1 and 20:1. In other words, it only takes 0.1 inch of “water” to make 1 to 2 inches of snow. In this case, we had 0.5-0.75” of ice to melt off, which is the equivalent of 5-15” of snow when speaking in liquid equivalents. When you look at it in this manner, you understand that it is impossible to melt off even 5” of snow with deicers (especially not at 21F), so that is why not only us, but also city, county and state road crews had such a difficulty with this ice. Our only choice was to heavily salt parking lots and sidewalks numerous times to introduce enough deicer to loosen the ice enough from the hard surfaces so we could clear it off.

The storm persisted with additional freezing rain through the day on 2/1, which only added additional difficulty once we began to make some headway with our salting then clearing efforts, as it further diluted the brine that began to form, necessitating additional salting in order to clear the ice. In the evening on 2/1, the freezing rain turned to sleet, which on parking lots and walks that we had gotten somewhat clear, was relatively speaking, simple to plow off. In situations where we were not able to salt, or not able to salt enough to get them clear, this sleet mixed with the half-melted ice and created yet thicker ice.

Our only saving grace was the fact that overnight from 2/1-2/2, the temperatures rose to above freezing, loosening some of the ice and ice/sleet mixture so that we could [very slowly] plow it off on some lots. This temperature spike was short lived, however, and soon precipitation changed back over to snow and the wind picked up about mid morning on 2/2. We received between 1 and 2 inches of snow, and with wind gusts as high as 50 mph, this blew the snow back across the lots nearly as quickly as we could get it plowed off, leading to additional times of 1-2” of snow across the lots and drifts as high as 24” in some locations. This once again diluted our brine created from the residual moisture on the surface and our deicers, and necessitated repeat saltings to keep ice from once again forming on the parking lots.

We were able to do final cleanups on 2/3-2/4, once all precipitation stopped and the sun came out which helped our deicing efforts considerably, allowing residual ice from all the previous bouts of mixed precipitation to turn to slush so it could be plowed off in areas that had been continually deiced.

However, we then got a 4” snow on 2/5, which had to be plowed a couple of times in order to keep up with it. Because it was very heavy, even though certain sites were closed for business, we couldn’t allow it to all pile up, or else traditional snow removal equipment wouldn’t be able to clear it.

As you can tell, it was a very extended event, and we had crews working around the clock for 96 hours straight, then intermittently for at least 16 hours a day the other days. We take our business of keeping your properties clear of ice and snow very seriously, and we hope we have showcased our dedication through this storm."