Monroe County wasn’t spared by a major winter storm over the weekend that blanketed much of the country in snow, though in the aftermath it appears locals have come out of the blizzard largely unscathed.

Monroe County Public Safety Director Kevin Scheibe offered his assessment of the past few days, speaking quite positively given the quality of snow that graced the area.

“Of all winter storm events to have, I was most excited over this one simply because I knew there wasn’t gonna be any sleet, there wasn’t gonna be any freezing rain, it wasn’t gonna be a wet snow so we wouldn’t have to worry about cardiac issues,” Scheibe said. “It was gonna be a light, fluffy, easy to push snow. If we’re gonna have a large accumulating snowstorm, them are the ones to have.”

While some incidents were bound to happen, Scheibe was further positive regarding the minimal number of accidents that crossed his path amid the snowfall, noting that those accidents he did hear about were largely minor.

He was thankful for the county’s overall response to and behavior during the winter weather, with this being a fair cold-weather event for the county’s emergency services.

“All in all, I couldn’t have been more pleased and am so appreciative of the community listening to us. It really was a very low-active storm event,” Scheibe said. “We didn’t have much for accidents. We had some but very minor, nothing with major injuries. We didn’t have much with slips, trips and fall calls or any type of injuries or health issues due to shoveling snow. It’s actually been a very low-acuity winter storm event.”

While injuries were seemingly minimal, Scheibe noted his lingering concerns regarding the intense cold which dipped into single digits over the weekend and are expected to generally remain below-freezing over the next week.

This prompted him and his department to open warming centers in Waterloo, Columbia, Hecker, Maeystown and Valmeyer. Those facilities, Scheibe said, will remain available for some time.

“My biggest concern, even now and into next week, is gonna be the temperatures,” Scheibe said. “These are dangerously cold temperatures. I did open the warming centers throughout the county until further notice just to be there for the community.”

Many in the county likely saw electricity conservation alerts posted by the City of Waterloo and Monroe County Electric Cooperative requesting that individuals limit their energy consumption by unplugging unused appliances, turning off lights and lowering their thermostats by a degree or two.

Scheibe said the county made it past the snowfall without any power outages, though he also said he had heard from a contact with Ameren that this county wasn’t expected to be impacted by any potential outages.

“We had our generators and everything ready to go for people that would be in medical need or the long-term care facilities, stuff that needs the generated power,” Scheibe said. “We had them ready, they were on standby, but we didn’t have to deploy any of that.”

Scheibe reiterated his satisfaction with the weekend’s merely fluffy snowfall compared to the tree limb or power line-downing ice that the area has seen in prior winter storms.

He further commended the work done by local municipalities and the county when it comes to keeping the roads clear.

Monroe County Engineer Aaron Metzger spoke about his department’s efforts in this area, saying pretreatment for the snows began Thursday and Friday, with plowing beginning 10 a.m. Saturday and concluding at 10 p.m. Sunday.

Metzger said additional road clearing took place 3 a.m. Monday with further work being done around the county as of Tuesday morning.

While he couldn’t share any precise numbers, he said county workers began hitting the roads with salt and magnesium chloride as temperatures marginally increased.

“The amount of snow we got with the cold temperature was different,” Metzger said. “Normally when it’s this cold, you might get an inch or two it seems like, so having this much snow with this cold temperature, we just had to do something a little different.”

In Waterloo, Director of Public Works J.R. Landeck said the city’s pretreatment with salt and calcium chloride began Friday afternoon to make a good base for clearing efforts.

The public works team was deployed at 2 a.m. Sunday to begin their routes clearing the streets and downtown, with two shifts applying roughly 270 tons of salt throughout the city.

Landeck noted the city was also required to operate the power plant for four hours Saturday evening to support the local grid.

He commended public works employees for their efforts as well as those at city hall who fielded phone calls and offered updates for the community.

“We are proud of the effort put in by our teams to keep the city moving and the lights on during this winter storm,” Landeck said.

Columbia Director of Public Works Mike Sander said clearing efforts in the city began Saturday at 11 a.m., with six trucks running through 11 p.m. Sunday to make the roads passable.

Salt treatment largely took place on Monday, with Tuesday and Wednesday serving as “mop-up days.”

Sander said snow-clearing work meant roughly 320 man hours as well as anywhere between 150-200 tons of salt used to treat city streets.

He was positive about the response, noting the lack of incidents but remarking on the exceptional number of man hours this particular winter storm resulted in.

“We had no equipment breakdowns,” Sander said. “Everything is going well. The only trouble we had is with people throwing their snow on the street and just leaving cars parked on the street, trying to go around them. This is one of the record snowfalls that we’ve had in years.”

With plenty of snow still left to be cleared from sidewalks and driveways, Scheibe voiced his trepidation at the poor weather that could still come over the next month.

Nevertheless, he was pleased at the aftermath of this weekend.

“Now the biggest challenge is trying to figure out where to go with all the snow,” Scheibe said.