Members of Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors became visibly agitated in a meeting with Virginia’s Department of Transportation over the agency’s response to a snowstorm in January.
The board says roads throughout Northern Virginia were not treated or plowed properly, making transportation nearly impossible for some residents during an early January snowstorm.
Several board members questioned VDOT’s claim that all roads in Fairfax County were plowed at least once in the first 36 hours of the storm was untrue.
“Our constituents came to us and said that no truck has hit this,” Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman said.
In a presentation to the board, VDOT Northern Virginia Deputy District Administrator Monica Bhatia said the agency was able to accomplish everything it hoped to during the storm. Bhatia said the reason some roads appeared to be unplowed was because the remaining snowpack turned to ice after the first round.
“People were thinking that they hadn’t seen anybody because … it was below freezing. It was packed so hard, it was ice,” Bhatia said.
But supervisors cut Bhatia off, saying her claim that all neighborhood streets received at least one pass from a plow was “simply not accurate” based on their own experience and what they heard from constituents.
“People were stuck for a week. One week. You all had one week to put together a plan. You failed miserably,” Mason District Supervisor Andres Jimenez said.
Ellen Kamilakis oversees public affairs for VDOT’s Northern Virginia district; she told board members they were dealing with unusual conditions at the time of response.
“When you involve snow and ice into it, it has direct impacts on our infrastructure and how we respond to it as well,” Kamilakis said.
Bill Cuttler, VDOT’s district engineer for Northern Virginia, continued to say the agency made all roads passable during the storm, meaning all roads had a path between 8 and 11 feet for emergency vehicles to pass through.
Though, Jimenez called the “passable” roads in his neighborhood “laughable.”
“We’re proud of what our NOVA team was able to accomplish, but we’ll continue to look at things like this and take the notes from today’s meeting on different things that we can look at to continue to improve,” Cuttler said.