4,000 tons of sand.

8,000 gallons of de-icer.

13,000 miles traveled to plow snow and spread sand.

1 missed Christmas.

Pretty much, you can add “more than” in front of each of those numbers.

Those statistics tell a huge part of the story of the Big December Storm that kept Renton in its icy and snowy grip for more than two weeks.

The snow is gone. But the City of Renton is still pouring over the paperwork from those 15 days to figure out the cost of the snow and ice removal. The city has money in the budget for such emergency work.

There is one thing for certain about the storm – really, storms plural.

“It was an extreme event,” said Patrick Zellner, who is responsible for keeping the city’s 243 miles of roads clear of snow and ice. He has worked for the city for 23 years. Never has he seen a worse stretch of snowy weather.

Zellner is the City of Renton’s supervisor for street maintenance services. He has a crew of 17. Many of the crew members were relatively inexperienced. No more. They got three years of experience in just a few days, Zellner said.

“It has been trial by fire for them,” he said. “They have done a phenomenal job.”

But, they aren’t done. What they put down, they have to pick up.

All those tons of sand dumped on roads is being swept up and for now is being stockpiled at the city’s maintenance facility in the Highlands.

Zellner expects the crews will sweep up the majority of the sand.

Because of debris, including broken tire chains, the sand can’t be used again. Screening is not possible. What happens to the sand is under discussion, Zellner said.

Other city crews are also cleaning the sand from the storm lines.

“I don’t want that (the sand) in the storm system,” Zellner said.

The city hasn’t used salt on streets in years, Zellner said, which is corrosive

and potentially is a threat to the city’s shallow aquifer, its sole source of water. Instead, the city uses a de-icer.

The city never ran out of sand or deicer. If regular suppliers couldn’t make deliveries, the city would send its own vehicles to pick up the sand or deicer. The restocking process is under way, too.

“We never ran out,” Zellner said of the sand and de-icer. “I wouldn’t allow that.”

The cleanup process likely will take weeks.

During the storms, Zellner had his crews working two, 12-hour days starting on Dec. 12. It was then that the battle against the snow began, culminating in perhaps the worst day, Christmas Eve, when everyone and every truck seemed to have someplace to go.

It seemed like there was one or two jack-knifed semis on every hill, Zellner said.

He was on the job Christmas Day, but he was able to assure that crews got some time off on Christmas.

The first week was “really bad,” with snow that melted by day and refroze by night, he said.

“Every night was like starting all over again,” he said. “The next morning was catching up. It didn’t seem like it was going to end.”

The battle concentrated on the city’s primary routes that are most used by travelers, such as the Benson Highway, Petrovitsky Road and Northeast Fourth Street.

Newly added to the city’s list of priorities was 140th Way Southeast, the steep hill that connects the Maple Valley Highway to the Fairwood area.

It was a challenge.

“The problems we had on Petrovitsky and 140th were incredible,” Zellner said. That area was annexed to Renton earlier in the year. Zellner had his crews continue past the city limits on 140th Way deeper into the unincorporated Fairwood area.

“We didn’t have much choice but to make an effort in those roads as well,” he said.

Geography gives Zellner fits, too.

“Renton is nothing but hills,” he said.

Renton Hill, just up from downtown, is a prime example. As in other neighborhoods, Renton Hill streets came second to major arterials for attention from the maintenance crews. However, whenever possible the city’s five trucks equipped to plow snow and spread sand went through neighborhoods to their primary routes, clearing snow along the way.

Renton Hill also has a “back door” – a locked gate at Philip Arnold Park that the city unlocked so that residents could use a roadway to get to Puget Drive and then points beyond, avoiding the steep and treacherous Renton Avenue.

Other steep problems include Northwest Second Street and a few in the Windsor Hills neighborhood.

In addition to trying to keep streets clear, Zellner and his staff – along with City Council member Marcie Palmer – were busy taking phone calls, often angry ones, from people who weren’t satisfied with the city’s response.

The biggest complaint was that neighborhood streets weren’t getting plowed. Then there was the one about driveways being blocked by snow on major arterials.

“They had to deal with a lot of abuse,” Zellner said of his office staff.

But, Zellner points out he and his crew received a lot of positive feedback, too.

The city stuck to its plan of keeping primary streets open for travelers and emergency vehicles, so residents had to take some of the responsibility to get around their neighborhood streets – or stay home.

The two weeks, Zellner said, brought home the need for everyone to prepare for an emergency situation.

“There is only so much we can do,” he said of the city. Plus, some of the streets are simply too dangerous for the massive city trucks to navigate safely, he said, pointing to some near misses.

Those are the times that neighbors need to rely on each other, he said, and have an understanding of what resources are available to them within their own neighborhoods.