Great Plains winter weather can turn treacherous in an instant. When an Arctic cold front collides with southern moisture over Sedgwick County, freezing drizzle can coat highways, parking lots, and residential sidewalks in a sheet of glare ice before turning into heavy, wet snow. For business owners and property managers, this creates immediate slip-and-fall liability hazards.
Follow this emergency winter storm checklist to protect your family, customers, and concrete surfaces.
1. Pre-Treat Walkways Before Freezing Rain Begins Applying a granular de-icer or liquid brine to dry concrete prior to precipitation prevents ice from bonding directly to the pavement. When snow falls on top of a pre-treated surface, shovels and plows can scrape down cleanly to the bare concrete without leaving a bonded ice layer.
2. Choose the Right De-Icer for Concrete & Pet Safety Avoid cheap sodium chloride (rock salt) if your concrete is less than two years old or if you have pets. Rock salt stops melting ice once temperatures drop below 20°F and causes concrete surface spalling. Instead, use coated calcium chloride or magnesium chloride pellets, which generate exothermic heat and continue melting ice down to -10°F while being much gentler on cured concrete and pet paws.
3. Clear High-Priority Pedestrian Paths First Focus initial labor on: - Primary building entryways and ADA wheelchair ramps - Steps and landings where handrails are installed - The path from vehicle doors to the front door - Fire exits and emergency egress paths
4. Stack Snow Down-Slope from Walkways When shoveling or plowing, always pile snow on the downhill side of walking paths. If you pile snow uphill, daytime sunshine will melt the snowbank, causing water to run across the sidewalk and refreeze into dangerous black ice as soon as temperatures plunge at dusk.
5. Partner with a 24/7 Commercial Snow Contractor For commercial parking lots, retail storefronts, and multi-family HOA communities in Wichita, manual shoveling cannot keep pace with heavy Kansas storms. Grass Monkey operates heavy-duty plow trucks, skid-steers, and dedicated sidewalk crews, dispatching automatically when accumulations reach trigger thresholds.
