Memphians have faced multiple severe heat warnings and a thunderstorm that left thousands without power this summer. However, Scott Morgan, the city’s director of public works, is still thinking about icy roads.
January’s winter storm, which shut Memphis down for more than a week, wasn’t just an outlier — it was record-breaking. It was the first time the city had more than three inches of snow on the ground six days in a row, according to the National Weather Service. The previous record was five days in 1988.
That’s not the only thing that made January’s event so unusual, said Desiree Meadows, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Memphis. Most of the storm’s precipitation was sleet, which compacted during at least 72 hours of subfreezing temperatures, making it much harder to melt.
That storm revealed just how underprepared Memphis was for extreme winter weather. A city with more than 6,800 lanes of streets had just six brine units, 15 salt trucks and 10 pieces of heavy equipment used for plowing (four of which were owned by contractors) to clear them.
Garbage and recycling collection services were suspended for eight business days “due to dangerous ice accumulation along curbs and sidewalks,” according to the City Council Chairman’s Feb. 6 newsletter. Schools were closed for 10 days. The four school years prior saw just four days each of weather-related school closures, according to records provided by Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
The city plans to be better prepared next time.
Memphis is in the process of purchasing 14 snowplow attachments, which will connect to 4×4 trucks and dump trucks. They should cost $520,000 and were approved in the recent City of Memphis budget for fiscal year 2027, which started July 1.
“It’s just going to provide a lot more versatility and hopefully provide a better level of service in getting those roads cleared,” Morgan said.
The dump truck attachments will be especially important, he said: The same trucks will be able to plow snow and then spread salt. Plows on smaller vehicles, like the 4×4 trucks, can drive onto smaller streets where dump trucks can’t fit.
Morgan was appointed to the role in December 2024 after 20 years of working with the department. In late 2024, he and others in the department created a plan to clear the roads of ice and snow, starting with primary routes that connected to the interstates or important places like hospitals, then moving to secondary roads that act as arteries for smaller roads.
The plan worked well when it was first rolled out during storms in January and February of 2025, but those events were mostly snow, Morgan said, and the sun melted it quickly.
2026’s winter storm, in contrast, was ice, with little sun. The sleet packed on the road, forming blocks of ice up to six inches in some areas, making plowing less effective. The city cleared its primary and secondary roads by Wednesday, about five days after the snow began to accumulate, before moving on to tertiary roads.
The tiered plan did not include most of the smaller residential roads. As the weather warmed, the public works team pivoted to repairing potholes caused by multiple freeze-thaw cycles impacting asphalt.
By the end of the 2026 storm, the city had applied 46,400 gallons of brine and 2,562 tons of salt. Its public works employees worked 3,950 hours, with another 571 hours worked by contractors, according to information shared with the City Council in February.
In the future, they plan to follow the same plan of clearing roads in tiers, Morgan said, with a goal of having one lane open in each direction on those priority routes.
“Overall, Public Works staff did an exceptional job considering the inclement weather event,” Morgan said. “However, additional plow attachments could have assisted with a more efficient removal of accumulated precipitation on the priority routes.”
Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com
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