Wheaton residents urged to stay home

Wheaton residents should stay home except for extreme emergencies while street crews clean up after Tuesday's blizzard, officials said Wednesday.

Wheaton Mayor Mike Gresk said he met with about a dozen city officials Wednesday to plan the city's response to damage left in the wake of the storm. He said emergency management officials put the blizzard, which dumped more than 18 inches of snow in about a 24-hour period on Chicago and most of the suburbs, in the same emergency category as a tornado event in the summer.

Gresk said officials will continue to meet every four hours to receive updates on the evolving situation. He said road conditions have improved and the city has ordered extra salt to deal with the storm and the approaching deep freeze.

“We're managing it well,” he said. “The staff is to be commended for its efforts. We will have the meetings until a sense of normalcy returns.”

Roughly 20 Wheaton households remained without power Wednesday morning. Wheaton City Hall was closed Wednesday and is expected to reopen Thursday.

“Everybody is making the best of a bad situation,” Gresk said. “We had some concerns about (police and fire) staff not being able to get back but there have been no huge holes in shift work.”

Police urged residents to stay home and let city officials take care of the snow's aftermath.

“We have not had any loss of life, thank God,” Deputy Chief Tom Meloni said. “If people stay home and let the thing blow over, we'll be good to go.”

Meloni said the police department served as a warming station overnight.

“Officers are patrolling the open roads and snow plows are taking them into the smaller streets, if necessary,” Meloni said. “We have got an ample number of police officers on the streets.”

For the first time in about a decade, Wheaton Warrenville District 200 officials closed their main office doors for the day. They continue to monitor the situation and have yet to announce whether school will reopen Thursday.

Gresk said a fleet of 15 large snow plows, five medium-sized snowplow and three front-loader machines have cleared many of the main roads and the city will look into contracting with a snow removal company.

But Gresk said residents should remain cautious and should avoid pushing snow off their driveways and into the streets.

“We fared better than many other suburbs,” he said. “But people have to be careful about it.”