Seven inches of snow dumped onto DeKalb and the surrounding area Friday. Like any other city, DeKalb scrambled its plows to battle the winter weather onslaught.

Each year, cities have to estimate how much to budget for keeping roads safe during hazardous winter weather. The DeKalb Department of Public Works budgets $95,000 a year for salt and $60,000 for labor, while remaining cognizant of the varied overtime, said Mark Espy, assistant director of DeKalb Public Works.

Officials must hypothesize the amount of seasonal snowfall, despite Mother Nature’s crafty ways and the possibility of running out of money before the snow stops.

“December was a rough month,” Espy said. “We probably spent 50 percent of our budget, so this January warm spell has been welcome.”

January could finish just as bad as December, though, for Friday’s blitz of fluffy powder pushed DeKalb to its snow removal threshold. Several cars were stuck all over town, causing many pedestrians to flow to the streets and use their only available means of travel – their legs.

“If we go outside of a two inch snow event, we contract out additional removal,” Espy said.

Extra manpower was needed to handle the 7.1 inches of snow in DeKalb. Areas as close as Elgin were pounded by as much as 12 inches – the highest registered total for Friday’s storm in the state, as compiled by the National Weather Service.

DeKalb prioritizes which streets it will plow beginning with the high traffic routes that police and fire might travel, like Routes 23, 38 and Annie Glidden Road, Espy said.

There had been 10.3 inches of snow to date this winter before Friday’s dumping, the largest snowfall this season, Epsy said.