The following is the text of an email from Maureen Probst after looking into Johnson County snow removal:Â Thanks Maureen, this is good info that will help us determine what our snow policy should be going forward.
2/25/11- I talked to Matt Olsen (317-346-4642) who is the Deputy Director of Johnson County Highway Department in charge of snow removal and salting streets. He said that all Johnson County roads and subdivisions are plowed and salt laid down by the County. He checked our subdivision and said that we are on their list and are in Area 14 which spans from 135 to Morgantown Rd and Stones Crossing to Smith Valley Rd.
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They have a total of 15 trucks operating 24 hours a day covering an area of 620 miles.
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He said that we pay for this service through the gasoline tax.
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They have a total of 4 subdivision areas with 4 trucks for each area and they have also added some part-time help for this winter and next winter.
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They operate 24 hours a day during storms and they have constant 2 way radio contact with their drivers. They plow once every 12 hour period and sometimes more than twice in a 24 hour period.
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**He gave me the direct number to call if we ever have any concerns with snow removal and they can radio the truck driver about our subdivision. That number is (317)346-4630
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Sometimes what they do initially is plow the main roads in the subdivision first and then come back to do the cul-du-sacs. ( One suggestion was if we advise residents to move all cars from the street to their driveways and garages the cul-du-sacs are more likely to get plowed better.)
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He said that there shouldn’t really be any reason why we have to pay a private company to do the plowing but he has heard of subdivisions where they were even paying for a private service and they weren’t getting anyone to do it. The only real problem is that sometimes people have unrealistic expectations about when plowing should be done and they think that because it started snowing the plows need to be there within the first hour.
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He also added that what could have happened in the past is that once the county truck got to our subdivision and saw that someone else had already plowed the streets they would just leave. They would have also assumed that salt had been laid down too so they probably wouldn’t have done that either. Â
