A funny thing happened when the city of St. Paul declared its sixth snow emergency of the season on Saturday. Virtually nobody got towed.

Sure, a few cars parked in blatantly unsafe or illegal conditions got hauled away by tow trucks, which happens even when there’s no snow on the ground. But the city didn’t send its contracted tow truck drivers out to clear residential streets.

Why is that? The short of it is there was no place to put the cars.

The St. Paul Police impound lot near Barge Channel Road isn’t big enough to handle a citywide snow event that could result in some 300 towed vehicles or more and the contract with a private tow lot near the Minnesota State Fairgrounds had already wrapped up for the season.

“That expired on Friday, and so we just didn’t have a secure location to tow vehicles to,” said Lisa Hiebert, a spokeswoman for St. Paul Public Works.

As a result, the city decided to skip towing, which left many streets difficult for plow trucks to access, and plenty of snow on the ground.

Residents who would like the city to give their street another pass-through with the plows can call the street maintenance line at 651-266-9700.

The good news is that temperatures will be in the 40s by Thursday and may hit 50 by Saturday, so the snow won’t stick around long.

Until then, “it’s going to be sloppy,” Hiebert acknowledged. Motorists should take it easy and drive at the appropriate speed for road conditions, regardless of posted speed limits.

The city typically braces for two to four snow emergencies per calendar year, each one costing a rough average of $600,000 from the city’s general fund for ticketing, towing and the like. In all of 2017, the city declared a single snow emergency. In 2018, there have been five. Related Articles St. Paul district reports enrollment drop as pandemic moves school online

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The city this year also has called about a dozen “pre-emergencies,” which don’t necessarily result in implementing official two-day snow emergency procedures but still entail ramped-up salting and plowing.

Even without widespread towing, many drivers moved their cars this weekend, anyway.

“Residents really knew what to do,” Hiebert said. “Compliance was pretty good.”