MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The City of Morgantown’s “Snow Plan Operation” has been kicked into overdrive to start the new year.
Amidst several days of ongoing winter weather, Morgantown Interim City Manager Damien Davis reported that city crews will continue to work on multiple shifts over the next couple of days to clear city roads that were covered by several inches of snow and some ice over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. Davis offered the update during Morgantown City Council’s regular meeting Tuesday, where he stated that crews were on the streets as he spoke to council members with crews running a combination of day and overnight shifts.
“We continue to be out there removing snow, and we’ll be out there all day tomorrow,” said Davis in his report to the council. “We have a crew out there tonight starting at 7 p.m., they’ll be out there (working), so we’ll just continue (plowing), if people have streets that have been missed, we’ll get a truck out there as fast as we can,” he said.
According to the city’s “Snow Plan Operation” available on the municipal website, major arterials and high-traffic collector streets not maintained by the West Virginia Department of Highways (i.e., priority one streets) were treated in the days ahead of the snowfall that took place late Saturday night and into Sunday. Plowing began in several hour increments when snow accumulated to around 3-5 inches over the weekend with streets categorized under three levels of priority. With several roads in residential neighborhoods in need of being addressed due to temperatures topping at just over 20 degrees over the past few days, Davis expects round-the-clock road crews will have roads cleared before the end of the week when warmer weather arrives.
“It’s cold out there, and so salt doesn’t work as well right now, so we’re going to continue to plow,” Davis said. “Tomorrow is going to be cold, but the next day, I think it’s supposed to warm up a little bit, so the roads should be cleared up, mostly, in two days,” he said.
Davis also mentioned that the road salt supply for the City of Morgantown is still in good standing despite the large influx of winter weather. As a result of winter weather that has taken place during the majority of January 2025, close to fifty percent of the city’s over 1 million ton salt supply has been used to address city roads and streets not maintained by the DOH. With temperatures expected to be above freezing temperatures by the end of the weekend, Davis and other members of the City of Morgantown’s Public Works Department are confident that roads will be treated to the best of their ability in the days ahead.
“We have put a pretty good dent in ours, but we are still about half full on each building,” said Davis on the current state of the city’s road salt supply. “So we have about 500 tons of our treated salt and about 1,000 tons of our regular salt, so I think we’ll be alright for the rest of the season,” he said.
During the public portion of Morgantown City Council’s meeting Tuesday, Grace Shelter volunteer Stephanie Hunt advocated for the city to support around $7,000 in funding for a daytime employee at the warming shelter operated by Catholic Charities West Virginia. According to Hunt, her call for financial support was done on behalf of close to a half dozen volunteers who operate the shelter located at Hazel’s House of Hope on Scott Avenue but are unable to open the shelter outside of their normal 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. operating hours, regardless of temperature. With temperatures dropping below zero during some portions of the day during this spurt of winter weather, the call for more financial support from the city is expected to continue.
“So right now we really need a full daytime position there, because when it’s 12 degrees outside, it’s really hard to tell people, ‘No, you have to leave,'” said Hunt.
The Morgantown City Council also unanimously approved the second reading of a service and lease agreement between the Morgantown Municipal Airport and Skywest Airlines during Tuesday’s meeting.