AUBURN — Road crews got started too late during a Dec. 21 ice storm, councilors were told Monday.

Assistant Public Works Director Denis D’Auteuil said the city had 12 sand and salt trucks available to begin treating Auburn’s roads, but sent out a only handful at about 9 a.m.

“It wasn’t freezing at this point, but we put some trucks out to address intersections,” D’Auteuil said. “The freezing really began to occur later, about 10, 10:30 a.m., and we had our all our trucks on the road by 11 a.m.”

The storm coated roads around Maine, even forcing the closure of part of the Maine Turnpike between York and New Hampshire.

In Auburn, it forced the closure of Minot Avenue and Goff Hill until about 1 p.m.

“That’s where we would have been better off if we had put all of our trucks out earlier,” D’Auteuil said. “I think we would have been a little bit better situation.”

Ward 5 City Councilor Leroy Walker had asked for the report and said Monday he wanted a more formal review of the city’s plowing plan.

“We’ve been salting and sanding roads before my grandfather was, and I can’t believe we made the same mistake,” Walker said. “They should have been out there, and that’s it.”

Walker said he also had concerns about the city’s snow removal plan, although it hasn’t been used much this winter.

“I would like to ask for some storm reports to see if we like the priority or the way they are doing it or if we have some things we’d like to see changed,” Walker said.

The city adopted a plowing priority plan last winter.

According to that plan, 15 streets are considered a top priority for plowing. Those are heavily traveled high-traffic roads such as Center Street, Washington Street, Main Street, Minot Avenue and Court Street.

Those roads are treated with ice melting salt and calcium chloride right before a storm and will be plowed every two hours during heavy storms.

Second priority streets, such as Academy Street, Stetson Road, Park Avenue and Turner Street, will be plowed every three to four hours. The plan lists 50 priority two streets.

Priority three and four roads, which include most residential streets and most rural roads, received less frequent plowing. Crews planned to plow those roads every four to eight hours.

“Normally that plan covers our response very well,” D’Auteuil said. “But this storm really did give us a challenge because it was strictly an ice storm.”

D’Auteuil said the department plans on sending trucks out earlier if there’s a danger of an ice storm.

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