Residents in Kootenai County are encouraged to move cars, unbury mailboxes, clear sidewalks and clear out fire hydrants during snowstorms to help cities maintain safety during emergencies.

A winter storm dropping over 3 or 4 inches in Kootenai County is considered an emergency.

“Winter requires lots of patience, understanding and cooperation,” said a snow guide from the city of Coeur d'Alene.

City staff do what they can to maintain road safety, but community safety is a group effort.

“One of the biggest things we try to get out every year is digging out your fire hydrant,” said Deputy Fire Marshal Craig Etherton, public information officer for the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department.

"Where we’re in a tough spot right now is that the first big storm we got, we got a little bit of warm weather, and then the freezing weather we’ve had since — all the berms are massive ice chunks,” Etherton said.

Shoveling out hydrants is getting harder as the snow accumulation piles up on the existing ice, and sidewalk berms could be too late to shovel out, Etherton said.

“We run into the concern of people not being able to use the sidewalks,” he said. “The only way people can get from one property to another is to go out into the street to walk.”

Blocked fire hydrants can delay emergency response time while fire crews try to dig access to the hydrants.

“It is the responsibility of the owner to clear sidewalks as soon as possible,” said Todd Feusier, director of the Streets and Engineering Department for Coeur d’Alene.

That’s true anywhere in Kootenai County, where residents are responsible for clearing access to their mailboxes, sidewalks and driveways, and for removing vehicles from the streets for snowplows.

“The No. 1 thing is, get your cars off the street,” said Mari Davey, assistant planner and public works administrator for the city of Rathdrum. “We can’t stress that enough. And help your neighbor.”

Vehicles left in the street can compound problems with berms and snow, and they start narrowing the street width, Davey said.

When people are forced to walk in the street, it creates a heightened danger to pedestrians as streets are narrowed by vehicles blocking plows or deeper snow accumulations.

Vehicles left on city streets are likely to be “buried” and are subject to citations for obstructing the roads.

The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office has been helpful in keeping up with citations for obstructions and obstacles in the streets, Davey said, but the city is not enforcing sidewalk clearing as much with how difficult berms have been to remove.

A car that is left in the same location for 24 hours is considered abandoned in the state of Idaho, and as an obstacle can be subject to towing, depending on tow truck accessibility. Vehicles are referred to code enforcement by snow plow drivers, Feusier said, and code enforcement issues citations or handles removal.

With the cold weather and increased use of space heaters, carbon monoxide can also be a danger to North Idaho residents.

“With the super cold we’re expecting over the next couple days, people are concerned about their pipes freezing,” Etherton said. “We see people trying to buy space heaters and put them in attics, cabinets and crawl spaces. It’s really important to keep your air intakes and exhaust ports on your house clear, because snow can build up and block ventilation ports.”

Fires could be more likely to break out as residents use space heaters; paths to the street can be blocked by ice berms, fire hydrants could be buried and narrower streets could limit access, Etherton said, creating a perfect storm of increased hazards.

With that list of risks, he encourages people all winter to carry emergency kits with blankets, phone chargers, food, flashlights and medication to be prepared in crisis situations and to keep people safe.

Plowing shouldn’t begin on residential streets until this morning, Feusier said, where focus has been on arterials, hills and major streets. When plowing starts in residential areas, the interactive map on the city’s website, cdaid.org, becomes activated and Coeur d'Alene residents can view plowing progress in their neighborhood in real time.

“We do the best we can with what we’ve got,” Feusier said.

*This story has been edited to correct the spelling of Feusier