Emporia Street Department

About Emporia Street Department

Commercial Street's old brick still shows through the asphalt patches downtown, and it's one of the first stretches the Emporia Street Department clears once snow piles up overnight. City trucks run a set route long before the shops flip their signs to open, sanding intersections and scraping the brick-lined blocks back to pavement. The order never changes storm to storm, streets opening in the sequence the town actually needs them to. By the time Emporia's morning traffic builds, downtown, the schools, and the neighborhoods off them are all passable. It's unglamorous work done mostly in the dark, and the town runs on it every winter morning.