Nashville is still waiting to receive dozens of snow blowers ahead of winter.

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) – Cold weather is coming. If Nashville gets some early snow, WSMV4 Investigates will find out there aren’t as many snowplows in town as they’d hoped.

Although it’s warm now, some are ready for winter.

“Sometimes it’s just beautiful,” says Ramona Swett, who lives in Nashville. “Other times it will turn into a storm.”

This is exactly what happened in January. A snowstorm struck, trapping some residents in their neighborhoods for a week. WSMV4 Investigator Courtney Allen asked Swett if she thought the city had enough snowplows at the time.

“I don’t think so,” Swett said.

WSMV4 investigators found that there should have been 17 new plows in the city long before the hurricane. They ordered them two years ago, but the plows weren’t delivered until last spring. The supplier blamed supply chain problems.

We discovered that while the city was waiting for this order, they went ahead and ordered 20 more plows from the same supplier. This order has not yet been carried out.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Swett said.

The last order was made in June 2023. This past July, the Nashville Department of Transportation confirmed that order was also delayed, but said it would be ready no later than the end of October. NDOT tells us only two of the 20 arrived this week.

“We need those snow blowers,” Swett said.

NDOT said the second order is also affected by supply chain issues in the heavy equipment industry. They are now expecting delivery within the next few months. Despite the delay, city officials said they now have more snowplows on hand than at any time last year.

“We’ll just keep praying that they all get here,” Swett said.

Once all the new snow plows are delivered, there will be a total of 37. This is in addition to the 30 plows already in the fleet that NDOT plans to eventually retire.

Supplier Cumberland International did not return our call seeking comment.

We contacted the mayor’s office about the delay. “Mayor O’Connell initiated a number of changes following last winter’s severe storms,” ​​said spokesman Alex Apple. “NDOT now has not only 31 primary, 31 secondary, but also 31 secondary routes to reach even more plowed streets in a timely manner. Thanks to the trucks that have already arrived, we will have more trucks at the beginning of this winter than at any time last year. Metro General Services operates Metro’s fleet. These plows were ordered from two different suppliers before Mayor O’Connell took office, and resuming the ordering process from a third supplier would almost certainly slow down the process. We have started receiving trucks from the 2023 order and are looking forward to receiving the rest.”

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