Snowplows moved through St. Paul’s residential streets Friday and Saturday, trying to get a jump on recently fallen snow. But residents expecting a heads up that never came got an extra cardio workout digging out their cars.

“My car was buried including the parking spot in front and behind it. Not easy at all to shovel it out,” said East Side resident Bridget Kasten. “They should have called a snow emergency.”

To call a snow emergency, which would have notified participating residents by email, text or app, at least three inches of snow needed to fall. Since Thursday, the city saw about one inch.

“It wasn’t a snow emergency,” said Lisa Hiebert, St. Paul Public Works spokeswoman. “We really wanted to make sure we weren’t causing confusion.”

A snow emergency also means if residents don’t move their cars to the appropriate side of the street to make room for plows, cars could be ticketed and towed.

Hiebert said the department was just hoping to keep the snow from getting packed down when it sent plows to the neighborhoods. She felt using the alert system for a non-emergency would make people worry about getting towed.

Instead, the department posted it on its snow emergency website. Residents curious about plowing updates could call 651-266-PLOW for a recorded message.

“I’ve heard people are frustrated we didn’t put out an email,” Hiebert said. “It wasn’t a snow emergency. We need to be very diligent about how we use that communication. This is additional extra plowing efforts to try to remove some of that snow pack.”

It’s the city’s policy not to plow residential streets unless a snow emergency has been declared. But the off-and-on precipitation, including ice and heavy snow, has them out more than usual, she said, trying to keep the streets usable.

Why doesn’t St. Paul plow with every snowfall?

“It’s a staffing issue,” Hiebert said. “In reality when we declare a snow emergency, that’s about 80 pieces of equipment and staff for night plow route and another 70 or so for day plow route. We have to pull in staff from other departments.”

The city did give advance warning for non-emergency plowing Dec. 3-4 and it didn’t seem to make much difference in the number of cars moved off the street.

“Compliance was little to nothing,” she said.

For those like resident Julie Kaufmann, who said she would have moved her truck if she had known, Hiebert is glad of the feedback.