For those living in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, news of a snow emergency shouldn't be a surprise after a half foot snowfall.

Both cities have alert systems in place that tell folks when its time to move their cars.

In Saint Paul the sun wasn't even up before this snowfall was declared an emergency.

Tom Sagert fired up his rig about 5 a.m. as part of the first wave in a major plow assault on the city streets.

Saint Paul Public Works director Bob Sandquist said getting the main roads ready for rush hour was a main goal, "We've had them out since about three o'clock this morning. We'll be plowing arterials and primaries throughout the day, and then knock off about six o'clock, have a three hour rest, and then we'll be out with some vengeance from 9 p.m. until all of the night plow routes are plowed."

Wednesday night at 9, emergency parking rules go into effect, which means park on the correct street and the correct side of the street or risk being tagged and worse, towed.

Sandquist says the city goes overboard in efforts to inform residents, "We get the word out in multiple languages to our ethnic neighborhoods, we have a phone system that again will be activated this year, and reach tens of thousands of households in Saint Paul."

Despite those calls, e-mail alerts and information posted all over the city's Web site and on television and radio, Tom Sagert will encounter illegally parked vehicles, which makes his job even trickier.

And the moving cars, well those drivers aren't much better, few give him a break, "I've been doing it for quite a few years now, 18 years, it's just always good when you're done," says Tom.

Saint Paul hired a new company to operate their automated calling system, after experiencing widespread problems last year. The change seems to be paying dividends. Over 130,000 snow emergency notification calls were made on Wednesday, in less than 2 hours.

You can also get snow emergency information by clicking here.


By Dana Thiede, KARE 11 News
Last Updated: 12/15/2005 6:51:48 AM