Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part series about road maintenance on Vashon.

Islanders did not have to look farther than their unplowed streets this month to see that King County was under pressure to keep up.

Limited funding availability — coupled with a severe winter weather event — meant that the county could only focus its efforts to keep some roads clear, leaving others buried, such as the neighborhood of islander Michael Golen-Johnson, who was snowed in for several days on a hilltop. While the Department of Local Services plans to implement strategies to use what resources it has more effectively, some islanders say assurances aren’t enough, and moreover, that they feel left in the dark.

Jeremy Ferguson, the Road Services Maintenance Manager for King County, said the bands of snow that blanketed the island over three days early this month brought the most significant accumulation the region has seen in 70 years. It was also a litmus test for the county’s 225 miles of designated snow routes, chosen by priority years ago in consultation with Metro transit, fire districts, the sheriff’s department and other partners.

“Given our equipment and staff we have available to us, that is the number of road miles we believe we can maintain as open thoroughfares during a county-wide event,” he said.

On Vashon, roads are filed into three categories, ordered by importance and plowed accordingly. But Ferguson said the county was stretched so thin that only the most critical roads in unincorporated areas could be cleared in the storm’s wake.

On Vashon, that included the main highway, the Westside Highway and Dockton Road, the only arterial connecting Maury Island to town. All other roads were left to the elements until attention could be devoted to them if at all possible, leaving Cove Road, Bank Road and Cemetery Road — earmarked as Category 2 roads by the county — next to be cleared. In Category 3, last to be plowed, is 121st Avenue, Thorsen Road SW, the Westside Highway connecting 220th Street with Cemetery Road, and on Maury Island, 75th Avenue and 99th Avenue.

“This is the first time in recent history we’ve had to do only a category one [snow] removal,” he said, adding that officials were cautious of setting higher expectations. “We are prioritizing things based on the protection of life and property.”

On that note, Ferguson said he had staff in the county’s Office of Emergency Management coordinate measures to support other agencies as road crews learned more about conditions on the ground. The Local Services Department, which includes King County Roads, occasionally pulled crews from primary snow plow routes to help elsewhere, such as clearing a way to the Vashon-Maury Community Food Bank, which was crucial for volunteers as they worked to distribute food for those who were in need during the storm. 911 services dispatched roads crews to locations throughout the county so ambulances could reach people and get them to safety.

Road crews also provided assistance to Puget Sound Energy (PSE) as it worked to restore power far and wide. PSE spokesperson Andrew Padula said the county’s response to unplowed roads may extend or reduce the length of time an outage lasts, but that the power restoration estimates PSE provides online factor in many other variables depending on the situation. In the event of severe weather, Padula said, PSE often cannot provide more accurate information — the estimates are supposed to be turned off but can glitch and remain displayed.

Ferguson said that two trucks with plows and a road grader are equipped and ready to face harsh winter conditions on Vashon. He added that the Roads Maintenance Division office on the island has a daily staff of seven, but more personnel were brought in to augment the existing crew, including an additional driver and mechanic.

“We ran at least one truck and one grader nearly 24 hours a day for the bulk of the event. We were only able to do that because we had help from King County Parks and King County Solid Waste Management,” he said.

Under duress, noted Ferguson, vehicles and gear will inevitably need maintenance — and crew members will need to eat and fuel up themselves. He said there was a four-hour long window of time during the storm when both trucks from the island were down due to heavy use, adding that other trucks, plows and equipment were loaned from off-island when available.

Ferguson said the county’s goal was to use what they had as best as they could — salt distributors and contractors were brought in to haul sand and salt for the roads so crews on Vashon could continue to remove snow without disruption.

Across the county, Ferguson said, most crews — including on Vashon — were working on alert status due to the frequency of power outages, downed trees and localized micro-climates that can develop icy spots. Having crews on-call means the Department of Local Services can respond to urgent needs as they arise, Ferguson said, noting that at the height of the storm, there were 160 roads staff members deployed, but only 80 on their scheduled shift from midnight to noon and from noon to midnight.

But as the county adds up the numbers following the historic snowstorm, Ferguson said the budget does not have room to expand its snow removal efforts anywhere.

“In a county-wide event like this, it’s less about what’s the most economical, and it’s more about what the safest response for the public [is] that will help keep those category one roads open,” he said, adding that exact figures for the cost of this recent snow response are not yet available. “The entire operation year-round is constrained by the budget. Whatever we have to do now will have to come out of something else later.”

Money for capital investments in roads and bridges in unincorporated areas is set to run out within the next six years due to a loss of revenue, according to The Redmond Reporter, a sister paper of The Beachcomber. Some of the reasons for the funding shortfall include declining gas tax revenues and a smaller property tax base county-wide. Department of Local Services spokesman Brent Champaco said when money for capital improvements to bridges and roads runs out, other basic maintenance and operations services will be reduced to stay within budget — including snow and ice control.

Ferguson, meanwhile, said the county’s roads division reviews the viability of the snow routes every year, which in the past have been determined largely on speculation. New in 2019, calls from citizens to the 24/7 Road Hotline were used to develop a heat map showing where the least serviced roads in unincorporated areas are. Ferguson said that information will allow the department an opportunity to make minor modifications to snow routes in the future and better understand how they can have the greatest impact.

But islander Michael Golen-Johnson, who belongs to the Vashon Emergency Operations Center team, believes it is too little, too late. After the snow started to fall Thursday, Golen-Johnson said his household near SW 250th Way was not accessible until the following Wednesday.

“I did not receive any up-to- date information on when or where roads would be cleared,” he said, “only that they would just be doing the main highway.”

Many islanders have expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of notice about road conditions given by King County Roads. A Facebook group created to report island road hazards emerged online as the storm hit hardest; it now has more than 500 members.

With no power from early Friday on, Golen-Johnson said the situation became dicey. He and his wife Elizabeth own a generator and were prepared for four days without electricity, as recommended by VashonBePrepared — three days, three ways of preparedness, he said — but with no word about when to expect they would be cleared out, Golen-Johnson said they ran out of fuel and had to ask friends for help into town where they could stock up. It was a long climb up an unplowed hill back home, each carrying a 5-gallon container of gas, not knowing when their power might be restored.

“The challenge I had really was the unknown,” he said.