Overtime, like the snow, piled up for local agencies during the storm

Once the snow is scraped away, the bottom line will be revealed.

At least that's what local public works and law enforcement officials said this week as they continue to pile snow, mitigate traffic congestion, clear tree branches and tally fender benders in the wake of the 96-hour storm.

"We're still out there working," said Ken Arnold, operations manager for Carson City's public works department. "Our budget is still normal. We did have a pretty good impact to the overtime budget but we plan for these things.

"I don't know what the exact numbers were - we're still tallying. The crew bosses worked 16 hours per shift through (Monday). Everyone's pretty worn out."

With rain predicted through this evening, public works officials said they're still on "high alert."

"What a lot of people don't remember right away is all the 'little things' we do," said Curt Horton, deputy operations manager for public works. "We remove troublesome limbs, plow snow, spread sand and (unclog) drainage outlets. We do our best to meet and plan well before storms. We review the town at the end of every shift to make sure everything's open.

"Once streets are opened up, we want to keep them opened up."

Even though snow piling on streets and branches covering arterial roads seem like the most obvious problem the public works department has to deal with, officials said much of the work is done below ground.

"Like in the case of this storm, whenever we have flooding and water problems - even if it's only for a small period of time - it affects the sewer," Horton said. "The flows increase at the wastewater treatment center and that can present problems."

Public works also mitigates potential hazards like street signs and traffic signals that are covered in ice and snow.

How do they do it?

"There's about 13 guys that work for the streets and a few other guys that work storm/sewer," Horton said. "That's it - believe it or not."

One such crew member is Carson resident Matt Jacobsen, who along with three others were busy near downtown Carson City on Tuesday clearing fallen tree branches.

Jacobsen said he didn't have many overtime hours during the storm, but that was because of his schedule. His co-workers, he said, had more.

"Overall though, things have been pretty under control - we're not too burned out ... yet," he said.

What may be surprising to some, public works spokesman Arnold said, is that no Carson City crews were dispatched to Fernley to help with the weekend's flooding.

"We certainly like to help our neighbors, but Fernley never requested (our help)," he said.

Carson City Sheriff Kenny Furlong said his agency sent out a call to Fernley, and he was similarly not taken up on the offer.

While search and rescue was able to stay in Carson City, the sheriff's office dispatch did assist Lyon County during the weekend's floods.

"There was a period of time when the 911 system in Lyon County went down," Furlong said. "By virtue of normal procedure, their calls went over to ours and then we re-routed them back."

Perhaps it was a good thing that Carson City deputies got to stay close to home as Furlong recounted the "ton" of fender benders that accompanied the weather last weekend.

"Accidents are anticipated in storms like this," he said. "We were able to handle them as they came and we were thankful there were no serious incidents."

As for overtime hours worked, Furlong said he expected the range to look "relatively normal" in spite of the busy storm days.

NDOT spokesman Scott Magruder had a similar story to tell with his agency's overtime workload through the weekend.

"We haven't tabulated the (hours) yet," he said. "It's always interesting because people ask how much the storm costs - it's one of those weird things where we figure, our bottom line doesn't stray much from a regular week.

"For example, I'm on anyway whether it's a storm or not. So our crews were out there working, working, working. In previous storms, we had to contract Granite Construction to help clear the roads. That's where the big costs happen. There is a lot of overtime, but we got through it using all our own equipment."

Wednesday morning, NDOT crews removed the snow berm that piled up through downtown Carson.

"Now we're standing by. Always at the ready," Magruder said.

• Contact reporter Andrew Pridgen at apridgen@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.