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ST. LOUIS — A week after the year’s first major snowstorm socked St. Louis, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones told local public radio that the city’s response was slightly above average.

“If I had to give our city a grade, it would be a B-minus,” she told St. Louis Public Radio’s , which was recorded Jan. 13, and published this week.

She explained that the city was handicapped by a shortage of plow drivers in the understaffed Streets Department. And she noted there have been delays in the delivery of smaller plows that the city purchased to try and address side streets traditionally left to melt on their own. This time, they froze over, creating treacherous conditions for some residents.

“It’s a problem,” she said. “But once you hit the main thoroughfares, it’s smooth sailing.”

On Thursday, after a week of complaints from frustrated residents and aldermen, she changed her assessment:

If she were to give a grade today, said spokesman Conner Kerrigan, it would be “incomplete.” The city is still working through its response, he said.

When the snow first fell on Jan. 5 and 6, the city appeared to be roughly as prepared as anyone else to handle the estimated 5 to 8 inches dropped on it. As the region began digging out on Jan. 7, a city spokesperson reported that nearly all of the city’s designated snow plow routes had been cleared.

But as the days wore on, stubborn cold left ice plastered across city streets.

In areas where plows had yet to venture — the residential streets the city has long left alone — residents began complaining to their aldermen and social media of trouble getting mail and medication, their kids to school and themselves to work.

And more than a week after the storm hit, aldermen across the South Side said they had snow routes that were supposed to be cleared still hidden by inches of ice.

The rancor came to a head last Wednesday and Thursday. First, aldermen convened a hearing with the Streets Department, the entity overseeing snow clearance, and residents took turns venting.

One alderman called the city’s snow response an “absolute failure”.

Then, 24 hours later, the mayor’s office released a remarkable statement from Streets Director Betherny Williams. It said Williams had taken a drive after the hearing and found that staff had been misleading her about conditions.

By Friday morning, some aldermen, incredulous at the suggestion that Williams just learned of bad conditions, were saying she might need to go.

Later that day, Kerrigan, the Jones spokesman, held a press conference to announce that the city had hired private contractors to help clear the streets.

And he expressed some regret for the administration’s handling of the storm. He conceded that the city initially failed to grasp the implications of the record-breaking storm, and took too long to abandon the city’s longtime policy of letting side streets melt on their own.

He was alone at the podium. Jones was in Washington, D.C., at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Williams was unavailable.