Anchorage still shoveling snow after record year

[Mark]

“We’ll be lucky if it’s gone by October or November,” said Glenn Ball, owner of American Landscaping.
 
Three bulldozer operators worked on the 4th of July trying to break down mountains of snow still towering over parts of Anchorage after the city broke its annual snowfall record of 132.6 inches.
 
Their job is to scrape off a top layer of gravel on the pile every day or so, because the gravel can insulate the snow and slow its melt.
 
“I don’t know how high it is now, looks like about 80 feet,” said Ball, as he looked up at what he estimated to be about 280,000 cubic yards of leftovers.
 
Cloudy skies and temperatures in the 50s mean it could be at least a few more months before the pile disappears.
 
“We’ll be lucky if it’s gone by October or November,” he said.
 
Which means they’ll be lucky if it’s gone before the winter snowstorms begin again.
 
Here’s a video of one of the bulldozers working on Alaska’s newest glacier:
 http://www.ktuu.com/videogallery/70884255/Environment/Snow-Piles-Tower-Over-Anchorage-in-July

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