About 5 inches of snow early Wednesday brought many things to a halt in Kent.
The Kent School District closed schools for the second consecutive day. City crews at one point closed about six streets that connect the East Hill and West Hill to the Valley.
City street crews were kept plenty busy trying to plow roads after the snowstorm.
“We’re just going from one hill to the other hill,” said Bill Thomas, city street superintendent. “South 208th got clogged up around 9:30 to 10 in the morning. We closed it so we could get tow trucks in there to move cars.”
Crews closed South 208th Street again in the early afternoon after a semi truck spun out.
Other street closures included South 218th Street, the James Street (South 240th) hill, 42nd Avenue and South 248th Street. Crews were able to keep Smith Street (State Route 516) and the South 277th Street corridor open.
Street crews, however, kept so active with the hills that by noon Wednesday they had yet to clear flat roads in the valley such as the West Valley Highway.
“That’s part of our secondary attack,” Thomas said. “We’re on the hills first to get them open. We focus on the hills then we spread out.”
State Department of Transportation crews were able to clear State Route 516 (Kent-Des Moines Road) between Meeker Street and Pacific Highway South.
The snowy weather caused the closure Wednesday of Kent Municipal Court and the Kent Senior Activity Center. The Kent Commons recreational facility planned to stay open until 5 p.m., but cancelled all programs and classes.
Allied Waste cancelled garbage, recycling and yard waste service to Kent. Customers who have a normal collection day of Wednesday may put out double the load for pickup on their regularly scheduled day next week.
Metro Transit ran all buses on snow routes and cancelled some routes.
About 1,000 Puget Sound Energy customers on the East Hill lost power Wednesday morning from Southeast 270th Street to Southeast 278th Street and from 137th Avenue Southeast to 158th Avenue Southeast. PSE cleared several fallen trees from power lines in order to restore power.
Some people were able to take advantage of the snowy weather. With no school and some people staying home from work, people hit the hills for sledding, tubing, snowball fights and building snowmen.
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