TOLEDO, Ohio — Many Toledoans woke up to the first significant snowfall of the season Tuesday morning. But what you may not have seen, at least not right away, was the city's salt trucks on the roads.
Multiple streets across the city and the metro area, especially in the south end, still remained slippery hours after they normally would have been salted by city trucks and multiple crashes were reported.
"It took me about 50 minutes to make it to downtown and it usually takes 20," said Todd Switala, a commuter who was coming to downtown Toledo from Sylvania.
Jeremy Mikoljczyk, commissioner of the city's Streets, Bridges and Harbor Division, said he's disappointed with the city's own response.
"We definitely could have done a lot better than what we did this morning," he said.
Mikoljczyk said the issue stemmed from a miscommunication with overnight crews.
"When we came in this morning, we were fully prepared for leaf collection again," he said. "Because we were prepared for a little less than we've seen, it took a little longer to switch over."
Once the switch was made, crews were able to get their trucks out full force, and with a little help from the sun, roads were almost completely snow and ice-free by noon.
Mikoljczyk said the delayed response isn't something he intends to let happen again.
"We definitely learned a big lesson on this one," he said. "A lot more of us are going to be paying attention to what's happening in the region and we're probably going to prepare more and maybe even have some overkill a little bit on the next one."
Mikoljczyk said the city had to pull some leaf collection crews away to help out with snow, delaying a few leaf pickup jobs across the city.
But in general, he said leaf collection crews have actually been ahead of schedule and you should still expect your leaves to be picked up close to the proper time.