SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — With snow cleanup efforts still underway in Sioux Falls, the piles made by the city are growing.
The difference made by five days of snow collection is staggering at the 12th and Lyons snow dump location. “Last week when you were over here, that was about 20% of the snow that’s probably here at this time,” said Daniel Whipple, a Street Maintenance Supervisor for the city.
“We were at about 1,200 loads last storm, and we’re at about a little over 5,000 loads at this point,” said Whipple, noting that about 3,000 loads are from side-dump trucks, while 2,000 are from smaller rear-dump trucks.
Whipple told us that there are three main sites that the city is using, at North Cliff, Lyons and at 69th and Louise. Of the three, he said the one at Lyons is the biggest.
“We have opened a couple more sites as well to start making more capacity for potentially more snow,” said Whipple.
The Lyons site where we were standing is nearly full. Due to this, the city has begun a new pile just to the north at the fairgrounds.
Whipple said that if Sioux Falls continues accumulating snow, this new pile could grow to the size of the existing one to the south.
At the moment, Whipple says there are about 60 trucks, side-dump and rear-dump, running in two shifts. Whipple mentioned that a side-dump truck has a capacity of around 21 cubic-yards, and that the rear-dumps have about half that.
While load volumes vary, and snow compaction could change the size, we can estimate that there may be as much as 84,000 cubic-yards of snow in these city piles. That’s enough to fill 25 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Whipple estimates the peak of the Lyons pile at over 100-ft tall.
Overall, Whipple says the biggest challenge with the snow collection is navigating around traffic, and asks drivers to do their best to give the workers the room they need.
