ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Criticism of St. Louis County’s response to the January snowstorm took the focus Tuesday as the council held a special public session that spanned over two hours. County managers said the area hadn’t seen a winter storm of this magnitude since 1982.

“The biggest problem that we’re facing right now is manpower,” County Councilman Dennis Hancock said.

Colleague Mark Harder echoed Hancock’s sentiment.

“We’ve had a people shortage for a long time and even in the summertime, we’ve been down 40 drivers,” Harder said.

County managers stood in front of the council, saying they don’t have the numbers to get the jobs done, from engineers needed to repair the more than a dozen plows currently sitting out-of-service, to actual plow operators to clear the roads and spread the salt.

“Normally, we know how many crews we have out and how far they can go and how much material they need to make a dent in a snowstorm and in this particular storm, we didn’t have enough people to cover the roads and the only way to get there is to hire more people,” Hancock said.

Wage increases for new county employees have been discussed since early 2024, with hopes for higher pay for all workers eventually. Council members are pushing back on county managers about better training protocol as well. Officials assert that they are open to innovative solutions.

“We have to get creative in how we solve some of these problems. We can’t just keep throwing money at it. The county already has a big financial hole to crawl out of already.” Hancock said.

When pushed for more concrete answers as to what these creative ideas might be, Harder suggested, “A spirit of helping the community. Yes, we can’t pay what a lot of big governments can pay, but maybe helping out of community in an emergency like this would be great.”