Regarding Dennis Seyler’s letter to the editor in the Dec. 19 paper, ‘Anchorage snowplowing,’ we have now had three ‘record snowfalls’ in the past year.
We set a new record for total snowfall in November. And with a warming climate, these kinds of snowfalls appear to be the new normal. And yet, our current city and state Street Maintenance Departments have fewer employees than they had 25 years ago, and I believe their responsibilities have grown a little since then.
It’s not a case of whining about living in Alaska.
If you didn’t have a fourwheel drive pickup, people couldn’t drive out of their neighborhoods for a week last month. You needed major ground clearance with your four-wheel drive to get anywhere, and not everyone can afford that.
I am grateful for the hard work city and state workers performed to clear as much snow as they could but they were going to a gunfight armed with just a knife. They didn’t have the resources they needed to do their jobs and that falls on our current city and state governments.
We have to do better.
— Richard Miller
Anchorage
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