As far as I know, the municipal government has minimal snow equipment. I haven't seen any plows, though it appears we have a handfull of sand trucks. We don't salt the roads here, which is why you can still see 1970s Datsuns driving around. The Oregon Department of Transportation has plows etc, and uses them to keep the interstate highways clear.

They use sand here in Fort Worth, Texas, not salt. The sand can be used for other construction projects during the warm part of the year if it is not used in the winder. It provides traction but does not have the ice melting effect of salt. But neither does it make your car rust.

When I lived in suburban Atlanta, there was some sort of snow-removal equipment, but not very much of it. I remember them clearing only the major thoroughfares, and just telling everyone to stay home until the rest of the snow or ice melted. (Part of the problem was that most of the roads were extremely hilly and curved, so ice could start to create problems pretty quickly among drivers who weren't used to it.)

That would be with just a few inches of snow.

When it snows here (Virginia Beach), we can count on time off work/school to allow the temperature to get high enough to melt it naturally.

I think they sometimes put down salt too.

But neither does it make your car rust.

But then you get to miss out on the 2-3 months of having a special "salt shield" on your car, Turning every car into a pale white imitation of itself, and giving the city a cold gray feeling.

I was in Atlanta when they had a foot of snow, 1990 or so. I remember that news reports said the city had 4 plows, for emergency routes only, and that, yes, you should just stay home for the day or so it took for the snow to melt. It wasn't until I moved to the far-north climes of Washington, DC, that I ever saw dirty snow.

Here in Houston, they're putting down crushed limestone on the overpasses, not salt. Which, after living in the mountains of New Mexico, makes me wonder why we don't use salt? Not that it matters ... people still can't drive in inclement weather down here.

From The Oregonian, talking about how Portland responded to the snow yesterday:

"The city announced a "full callout," meaning two 12-hour shifts in a 24-hour operation, with about 160 employees on each shift and more than 100 vehicles each shift. The vehicles include 55 plows and sanders, four anti-icing trucks, service trucks, backhoes and other support vehicles. The crews focused on emergency response routes, transit routes, major arterials, bridges and overpasses."

So yeah, Portland has quite a few vehicles around for our yearly snow adventure. The state has a lot more for keeping the highways clear.

(And even with all that effort, the city was still paralyzed by 4 inches of snow)

Posting on behalf of luneray, who can't post from work:

WSDOT [Washington State Department of Transportation] just has a few snow plows; we don't use salt because of its many drawbacks including--damage to cars, harms water quality if enters water bodies untreated (and the area isn't set up with desalinization stormwater treatment), and requires expensive, specialized equipment which isn't justifiable based on the very few times that it would be needed

(Part of the problem was that most of the roads were extremely hilly and curved, so ice could start to create problems pretty quickly among drivers who weren't used to it.)

Let me tell ya, I grew up in Buffalo, NY, and driving in 8 inches of snow is *much* easier than negotiating 1/4 inch of ice. The first time I ran into frozen roads down here, my years of experience in Buffalo were of no use to me at all, and I ended up doing a 360 with my car (which, thankfully, never left its lane in the process). But southern ice != northern snow and ice.

In Canada the municipalities own snowplows and do indeed stockpile sand and salt in these kinds of buildings. Our city doesn't remove snow like other cities (which is a pain) but merely plows it off to the side of the road. Sanding/salting usually happens at least once daily unless it's snowing. Then it happens as the situation demands.

According to this page, the last time it has snowed here was 1976, which was only the 11th recorded incident of snow since 1856. So no, I don't imagine that there are lots of plows around. On the other hand, there are mountainous regions such as Lake Tahoe several hours away where people go to ski so I imagine should it ever come to that they could just drive plows in from there.

I grew up in the Richmond area of Virginia, and there were very few plows (we used to joke about "The State Snowplow"). I do remember sand trucks, but if there was a significant snowfall (which happened maybe once or twice a year), snow remained on secondary roads for days, and everyone would drive in the ruts.

I don't know what the insurance company statistics say, but when I was in Atlanta once (I've been there about eight times) and it rained, without any ice at all, the accident rate was unbelievable. Just driving from our hotel to the client we saw two fender-benders and somebody off the road.

By non-coincidence, perhaps, one of our clients there lost his wife to a car accident just a few months later.

Anyway -- as a northerner, we're using salt less and less. This year the city's trying some superduper chemical which supposedly is safer for the environment with the same melting properties as salt.

In Chicago they attach plows to the front of sanitation trucks -- ever since the blizzard of '78 that put Jane Byrne in the Mayor's office.

We have armies of salt trucks and plows here in Chicago. And I can second drezdn's observation of the salt-covered cars being pale imitations.

The local town DPW (Department of Public Works) has a number of trucks that get fitted with plows and a smaller number that also get fitter with road spreaders. In past years, they salted heavily, but they seem to be switching to a sand mix.

Here in San Antonio, a lot of the streets were "graveled," meaning they threw down sand where they thought it might ice, instead of salt. The results were middling - we still experienced massive road closures due to icing. In my hometown in Northern California, we experienced snow once every 5-6 years. We had snowplows that we attached to the fronts of city trucks, if I recall correctly. There were also state-owned plows for the highways.

I'm from the North, so I can't answer the question, but I can tell you about salt'n'sand here.

We import the road salt for most of Northern New England. It looks like this, and sits in large piles by the bridge. In fall, a bulk cargo ship comes and dumps it, creating an enormous, Lawrence-of-Arabia-like saltscape. Over the course of the winter, it dwindles -- quickly over a rough winter, and slowly during this (mild) one.

We have armies of trucks. State trucks plow state highways and interstates, and municipal trucks plow local roads. But town utilities departments don't always really have enough plows to handle the load - so they subcontract to regular people, like my landlord, who have trucks with their own snowplow attachments. When a storm comes up, the phones of these indie plowers ring, and out they go. Indie plowers also accept contracts to plow people's driveways or, more lucratively, business parking lots, etc.

One problem when there's a lot of snow is: where do you put it? You can't just push it to the side of the street - it forms tall icy walls and blocks all the street parking, and makes walking a hazard. So in the deep of night, they do 'snow removal' - bulldozers follow a large dump truck, picking up snow piles left by the plow and dumping it in the truck. They then truck it off to, I think, the local dumps. Apparently, they can't dump it in the river because it's full of salt, the remains of exhaust, oil drippings, and bad compounds, just like storm runoff.

People often refer to our salt piles as an eyesore. I think they're awesome, one of the most unique features of the city, and a window into Northern New England life.

Bags of road salt are stacked up at each corner of vulnerable bridges here in Kyoto, but we don't always get enough snow to need it. This year has been sooo warm.