Tonight McLean will hear from Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) officials their plans for improving the way VDOT handles snow plowing and removal as a result of last winter's blizzards.

"After the record-breaking snow events of last winter the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and VDOT worked together to identify and address major problems with VDOT's snow clearing process," Dranesville Supervisor John Foust  said in announcing  public meetings in the McLean area on the new snow removal plans.

Some of the planned changes expected to be discussed include:
*Increased number of plows for neighborhoods
*Earlier mobilization of plows based on weather forecasts, not number of inches on ground
*More frequent and accurate communication with residents.

We all remember the back-to-back snowstorms between Feb. 5 and 11 that paralyzed the Washington area with  more than 45 inches of snow for a week. The snowstorms  closed schools, government offices, and locked us to our snow shovels and snow blowers, for nearly days.

In March, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors vented their displeasure with VDOT's snow performance at a  special meeting with VDOT officials.  The hearing was the first of its kind in Fairfax County since January 1996; that meeting followed an East Coast blizzard that blanketed Washington with more than two feet of snow, according to The Washington Post.

State officials said their employees and contractors worked to clear 17,679 miles of roadways in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties, the equivalent of six trips across the continental United States. In February, about 20 million tons of snow was either pushed, moved or hauled from roads in Northern Virginia. More than 7,000 potholes have been filled in Fairfax County since March 1, The Post said.

Morteza Salehi, the agency's Northern Virginia district administrator, said officials fielded 34,000 calls during the February storms; about 300 calls is average for a typical six-inch snowstorm, he said, according to The Post.

Here is the meeting information. For more information contact Julie Ide in Supervisor Foust's office at 703-356-0551 or by email at julie.ide@fairfaxcounty.gov.

December 9 @ 7:30, Library (Media Center), Chesterbrook Elementary School, 1753 Kirby Rd. McLean.

December 14 @ 7:30 (Snow presentation begins 8:15 to 8:30), Great Falls Grange, 9818 Georgetown Pike.