Street Department

About Street Department

Around the Hamilton County Courthouse square, the storefronts need their sidewalks kept moving all winter, and Street Department is one of the crews making sure of it. They work curb to curb along the downtown blocks, paying particular attention to the corners and gutters where meltwater turns to black ice by nightfall. Out past the square, in the older grid running down toward the Boone River, driveways get the same plow-and-salt treatment before residents head out for work. Iowa winters don't wait for a weekday, so weekend snow gets picked up too, before Monday traffic packs it down into ruts nobody can drive over. There's a particular satisfaction in a clean run down a street that was solid white three hours earlier.