City public works staff gave the Overland Park City Council an overview on Jan. 13 of the city’s response to a multi‑day winter storm that required sustained plowing and treatment operations.

Brian Diener, speaking for Public Works, said the city activated preliminary storm operations Jan. 2, pretreated streets and loaded trucks, and then responded to an extended period of snowfall and ice. “We use 60 trucks, pieces of apparatus, [and] a 172 staff,” Diener said. He told the council roughly half of those personnel came from departments outside public works and that about half of the people driving plow trucks had not previously done so for the city.

Diener said private contractors were used and wrapped up work recently. He noted the city’s challenges with cul‑de‑sacs — the city has about 2,000 cul‑de‑sacs — and presented a GIS heat map showing OP CARE reports across the city from the 47th Street area down to 200th Street. Diener referenced roughly 25,100 to 25,121 OP CARE tickets reported during the response (transcript figures vary) and said about 1,500 of those tickets remained active at the time of the briefing. He said a damage assessment team would go into the field the next morning to vet complaints and document damage such as mailboxes, turf ruts and broken sprinkler heads.

Diener also described the city’s communications during the event: dedicated web page updates, emergency alerts for each plowing and pretreatment event, three e‑newsletters, and multiple social posts that staff measured as having large audience reach. To support prolonged operations, the city offered hotel rooms to staff working 12‑hour shifts to shorten commutes and allow rest.

Council members and staff said the city will produce an after‑action report and review how contractors and city crews are deployed for multi‑day events. Diener said staff will use the data and heat maps to evaluate pinch points and whether different contractor arrangements, coverage strategies or communication timelines are needed for future storms.