Ecstasy, then agony, on Brisbane Street

There's a cheer on Brisbane Street as a plow arrives and begins to spread sand. (Thomson)

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On our page that invites people to state whether their streets have been plowed, I noticed this entry among scores of others:

Still no plow on Brisbane Street in Silver Spring, despite a MoCo statement that all streets would be plowed by noon today. [Tuesday]
2/9/2010 4:48 PM EST

I drove over to take a look, just because it was pretty close by. I had my pick of targets from many neighborhoods and all jurisdictions in the D.C. region.

When I got to Brisbane, which is just east of Georgia Avenue, I saw that for the most part, the street was white. I could manage it fine in my all-wheel drive, and a four-wheel-drive would have been in great shape. But I wouldn't have tried it in a two-wheel drive, and would be reluctant to go back there tonight, once that snow-covered ice has a chance to harden some more.

Half a block in from Brisbane's intersection with Forest Grove Drive, the neighbors were out shoveling the street and had cleared a portion of it. Then a cheer went up. An orange Montgomery County plow truck had turned onto the block.

The truck began to lay down some sand and moved into position with the plow blade. Then it stopped. The driver began to back up. You could hear the sigh along the street.

The driver couldn't maneuver along the narrow, icy path between the parked cars. The truck was too big. He called in a request that the county send a smaller Bobcat (it looks like a miniature front-end loader) to take care of the job. The neighbors went back to work, digging out, as the plow truck went in the opposite direction, down a wider portion of their street. They said they hadn't seen a plow come down their block since December.

See Brisbane Street on this map.

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