For some drivers, digging up their cars was a repeated performance with consecutive snowstorms, while others seemed to wait. But what does this mean for your cars?
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“It won’t do any damage that isn’t there yet,” said Jack Gordon, manager of Ashland Tire and Auto.
Gordon said that snowdrifts covering his car do not cause permanent damage, but they can prevent you from leaving your parking space faster than you would like.
“Some things that are likely to be a problem is that the battery is likely to be dead when you take it out. The brakes are likely to be very rusty, ”said Gordon.
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But what if you can’t even get out of the garage? The alley behind Caroline Knorr’s home in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood was completely impassable.
“Nightmare is a good word for that, for sure,” she said. “It is pure ice and as you can see, there is really no place to put the snow.”
The city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation says that opening roads in alleys is not a safe option. But there is a plan to ensure that vehicles can pass.
“We don’t cut alleys, which makes it difficult, I know that,” said John Tully, commissioner for the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation. “What we are going to do is start tracking those alleys with our garbage trucks. If you start plowing in the alleys, you will end up breaking the garage doors because there is nowhere for the snow to go.”
But with the main and residential roads still impacted, garbage collection and alley tracking will have to wait a little longer.
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