PORTLAND, Maine — If you park your car outside in the winter you know full well what it's like to shovel it out from a snowstorm. It's not fun, particularly when it's covered in so much snow you can barely see it.
Many residents in Portland were greeted with that predicament Wednesday morning and left wondering why the city didn't call a parking ban Tuesday night.
7.1 inches of heavy, dense snow that has been pushed up against the cars by city plows that need to keep the roads clear.
Digging a car out of the snow is a daunting task.
'It's pretty miserable".
Meghan Fogg lives on Sherman Street. Her car parked in front of her apartment was encased in snow. She was removing boulders of ice with her hands before she even started with the shovel.
"I'd hope to go to work today, I start at noon but I don't think I'll have enough time and that is two hours from now."
Jacob Cheng was parked on Park Ave. in front of Deering Oaks. He was at digging out his car for 45 minutes and had barely made a dent.
"Just ridiculous, the snow is at least four feet high, caked on side of my c,r." Cheng said.
Digging out is especially difficult when your off-street parking is on a busy road. "Trying to shovel out your car and dodging traffic in and out...yeah it's no fun."
Taking a break Meghan Fogg said, "I'm pretty angry, but I don't know who to point a finger at."
Mother Nature or the City of Portland. People we talked with, like Jessica Locke, wondered why the city of Portland didn't call a parking ban.
"The last time we got snow like this the parking ban was the next day and it leads to this situation where how am I going to get out of this," Locke said while continuing to clear off her car.
Chris Branch, the Director of Public Works, says a parking ban is called for two reasons: To push the snow and remove it. He says the decision to call a ban has a lot to with the timing of the storm.
"The snow has to be stopped before we can push it, the snow banks back," Branch says the city would never have had the time to push all the snow back.
It would have resulted in having parking bans two nights in a row. "We elected to wait and go with one this (Wednesday) evening."
The city also has limited resources only 46 people, who for safety reasons, can't work more than 16 hours straight.
Branch says, "that makes it tricky to schedule and plan and figure out how we're going to get everything manned and be able to do the work we need to do."
A snowstorm is a lot of work, but remember Spring is only 35 days away.
Portland has declared a citywide Parking Ban for Wednesday, February 13th starting at 10:00 PM through 6:00 AM Thursday, February 14th.