Back in December, winter snows paralyzed Seattle, WA when the city, citing concerns with salt in roadway runoff into Puget Sound, failed to use salt to clear city streets. Facing angry citizen reaction, the city recanted and now uses road salt. The mayor, of course, conducted an evaluation; he issued a "B" grade for the city DOT's response actions.

The Seattle Times on March 19 published results of its own independent review "to provide a more complete explanation of why the city was paralyzed by snow and ice for two weeks, even on days when there was no new snowfall." Reporter Susan Kelleher's article "Seattle DOT botched snow response," concluded:

When winter storms rolled over Seattle in December, bringing snow and freezing temperatures to the city, the manager in control of the city's snowplows had no experience directing a major snow response and had put in place as his No. 2 an employee who knew even less on the subject.

Together, Paul Jackson Jr. and Robert Clarke, a former crew chief, orchestrated a disjointed response to the winter weather that left major streets unplowed while Jackson, the man calling the shots, worried aloud about clearing certain streets so the mayor could drive to work, according to interviews with plow drivers and street crews and thousands of department records analyzed by The Seattle Times.

Better training was clearly an issue, beyond salt usage. The article continued:

While the weather was undeniably cold and snowy, interviews and a review of about 2,000 records, including e-mails and detailed reports on how the city deployed equipment and crews, show that transportation managers Jackson and Clarke made questionable calls on staffing and deployment.

Transportation crews described confusion and delays in dispatching plows when the snow first began falling, making it harder to stay on top of the game. Meanwhile, the records show trucks hopscotching around the city, attending to special requests or remaining idle while the city announced it was plowing "aggressively" and clearing main routes that residents swore had yet to see a plow.

Reader comments accepted the analysis and suggest that outrage for bonuses for bailout executives have a West Coast echo.

Bruce Watson writing in DailyFinance.com asks this highly-pertinent question as snowfalls forced cancelations and postponements throughout the Washington metro area and beyond. Watson's quest: to measure "the overall economic cost of a few inches of snow." Watson reports:

(A) month ago, when Europe was crushed by a massive snowstorm, newspapers quickly began to assess the cost of the unplanned holiday. The storm, which some hailed as the worst in twenty years, shut down highways, airports, and rail yards, killing business and leading many Brits to question whether the country, which had famously worked throughout the London Blitz, had lost its resolve.
Initial estimates, which placed the price at millions of dollars, were quickly revised upward. One in five people stayed home from work, decimating productivity. Ultimately, the cost in lost wages and business were pegged at somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.3 billion.

Salt Sensibility readers will remember last winter's $22 billion debacle in China .

Fortunately, we have an answer for Mr. Watson, as we posted on his website:

Great question: quantifying the benefits of snowfighting since snow & ice removal is the single largest public works expense for most snowbelt communities.
The Salt Institute has gathered the relevant data at http://www.saltinstitute.org/Uses-benefits/Winter-road-safety/Benefits-of-road-salt/Mobility .
Bottom line: if an agency fails to perform effective winter maintenance, the resulting gridlock for a single day will impose a greater economic cost on the local economy than the total snowfighting budget in that community for an entire winter.

Thanks for the opportunity to spread the word.

Two tough winters, back-to-back, may yet yield a silver lining. The difficulty in gaining access to sufficient quantities of salt has spurred many communities to invest in larger and better salt storage facilities. This will have a stabilizing effect on markets and is likely to greatly increase the degree of confidence with which communities face future winters.

The Fond du Lac Reporter ran an excellent story today describing the investment the city will be making in new salt storage facilities. From what we've heard, many other communities are doing exactly the same thing.

This news is greatly welcomed as the Salt Institute has for a very long time been recommending this very action. One of the problems with salt is that it is really a very reasonably priced product, considering the critical function it plays. Its reasonable price has occasionally made people forget that it is a strategic commodity for winter weather. We could not survive our winters without it and, like all other strategic materials management, everyone has to play a role in ensuring it is at the right place at the right time. This means sufficient salt storage closer to where it will be used.

Calls for supplies of salt in the dead of winter, the worst possible time for distribution, may not always be simple to respond to. Resorting to the blame game doesn't accelerate deliveries. The movement of salt from the mines to the road surface must reflect an infrastructure that includes more storage closer to the scene of action. It is good to see structures like the one in Fond du Lac going up.