School, Work and Business Back to Normal in Waukesha

Despite about into Waukesha this week, shutting down government offices, schools, churches and businesses, everything is starting to return to normal.

 John Ward, interim executive director of the Waukesha Business Improvement District, said he was impressed by the amount of snow that was moved from the downtown Thursday. The city plows were farther along in the snow removal process than he expected.

“The streets are looking pretty good,” Ward said. “The city has been plowing and cleaning out the streets. The streets are in pretty good shape.”

While many businesses closed in downtown Waukesha during the storm, which has been dubbed locally as “Snowmaggedon,” the main concerns among business owners was the that banned parking on all city streets and in alleys. The parking ban is

“They were worried about customers getting a ticket if they ran into get a cup of coffee,” Ward said. “I think that was the biggest concern for the businesses.”

Ward said he assured the businesses that the police department would use discretion in ticketing and towing the vehicles.

The storm was so bad that the plow drivers did not go home Tuesday night. Instead of braving the storm to their residences, they spent the night at work.

“They actually slept at the city garage Tuesday night and were out first thing Wednesday morning,” Mayor Jeff Scrima said.

Scrima rode with the plow drivers Wednesday morning in order to have a personal view of what it is like to be the only one on the road during a fierce storm.

“Being a plow driver is highly skilled,” Scrima said. “You are dealing with maneuvering a very heavy and dangerous piece of equipment around many obstacles.

“It was apparent that citizens who left their vehicles in the street against the snow emergency ended up making it much more difficult for the plow drivers, much more hazardous for any vehicles on the road and those vehicles that were left on the streets ended up getting plowed in. “

The public works and city garage employees did a “phenomenal” job in the blizzard, Scrima said. Scrima did not have statistics Thursday afternoon about the amount of salt used or overtime hours accumulated during the storm.

“The citizens can be very proud and grateful for the work that the public works director, Fred Abadi, and all of the public works employees did for our city,” Scrima said.