School lots slowly thaw after ice storm

Chester Edwards said he hasn’t seen ice this tough to handle since he moved to Columbia in 1968. As director of building services for the Columbia Public School District, the job of clearing the thick ice from schools has fallen to him and his crew.

“There is a large surface area to clear, but we are making great progress,” said Edwards, who spent part of Wednesday checking school conditions — especially sidewalks, driveways and parking lots.

The public schools were scheduled to reopen today after being closed Tuesday and Wednesday for an ice storm that began Friday. Monday was a federal holiday.

The district contracted five maintenance companies Monday to help clear ice on Tuesday, Assistant Superintendent Lynn Barnett said. The district hired two additional companies Wednesday to lighten the workload of school custodians — bringing manpower and pickaxes to what Edwards said is more than two miles of sidewalks connecting school buildings to the district’s 152 mobile classrooms.

“We’ve made significant progress since yesterday,” Barnett said. “With help from the companies, we believe we can provide a safe environment for children, families and teachers to get into the schools.”

If those mobile classrooms still aren’t accessible today, students may double up in other classrooms or be moved to other available areas, she said.

So far this school year, school has been closed four days because of snow or ice. This latest storm brought ice made seemingly impenetrable by rapid accumulation in bitter cold, said Ryan Stone, foreman of Mill Creek Landscaping in Columbia.

Stone and his crew used shovels, picks and an ice-melting mixture to make walkways and ramps to school buildings and mobile classrooms accessible.

“This is a special situation,” Stone said. “Normally the schools can handle the wea­ther, but the thickness of the ice is a problem.”

Stone said the work involves a lot of difficult manual labor, requiring men instead of machines to do the work.

After contacting the school district Tuesday, Rob Christensen, owner of Christensen Construction Co., sent workers to clear ice Wednesday morning.

“What they really need is help with labor,” Christensen said. “The school said they had all the equipment they needed, so our men went out with shovels to help.”

Edwards said the reason schools have been closed while the city’s roads are clear is because there is more work than the current staff can do in the short period of time available.

“It’s hard to appreciate when the streets are clear,” Edwards said, referring to the work that goes into breaking down the ice. “But our number one concern is the safety of the children.”

As snow and ice fell over the holiday weekend, school administrators and landscapers such as Stone did not realize how thick and tough the ice would be.

“We weren’t fully equipped,” Edwards said.

The National Weather Service is forecasting snow this weekend for Columbia.

“We have the same set of equipment,” Edwards said, “and a good supply of ice melt.”