As the region thaws out and the snow melts away, residents in Covington and Maple Valley didn’t experience any major accidents related to the weather.

Sgt. John Urquhart, spokesman for the King County Sheriff’s Office, said that while deputies were busy early in the week, “I am not aware of any particular calls that were especially noteworthy,” he said in an e-mail interview.

“Hundreds of stranded vehicles, accidents, icy roads, more icy roads, more fender-bends, miscellaneous 911 calls and pretty much anything else you can imagine that was somehow weather related,” Urquhart said.

Washington State Patrol troopers were also busy, said Trooper Julie Startup, spokeswoman for District 2 which includes King County.

“We responded to hundreds of reports in a 24 hour period related to the ice and snow,” Startup said via e-mail. “The greatest challenge was the enormous quantity of reports that needed response and the limited resources available. Our communications center was receiving reports faster than they could be handled.

“The logs that I have reviewed for incidents show that most of our serious and extended scenes were in the Tukwila and Seattle areas of I-5 although there were many collision and incidents in other areas of King County.”

Maple Valley and Kent firefighters each responded to a pair of house fires on Tuesday in their fire districts.

“Weather related calls include a sledding incident,” said Maple Valley Fire Marshall Scott Webster. “We’ve only responded to two or three motor vehicle accidents since Sunday — there were no or very minor injuries. This is a typical amount in a week anyway, regardless of weather. So, (there were) not a lot of weather related calls.”

Response time can be longer, though, when the roads have snow and ice on them, Webster added.

Capt. Kyle Ohashi, spokesman for the Kent Fire Department, said that through Wednesday “the number of calls we’ve gone on related to the weather has been minimal.”

“What you see in terms of vehicles are cars in the ditches or sliding into each other, they’re minor things with no injuries,” Ohashi said on Wednesday. “The big thing right now, starting today, we’re seeing not only in Kent but throughout the area, is broken pipes. We’re seeing them in commercial structures with sprinkler systems. So, there’s flooding businesses.”

Meanwhile, public works employees in both Covington and Maple Valley worked to keep the streets clear so drivers who had to travel on area roads could do so as safely as possible.

Steve Clark, public works director for Maple Valley, said in an e-mail that the city has “two trucks equipped with snow plows and de-icing equipment and a third truck equipped with deicer.”

“Prior to the storm we applied deicer on the city’s primary streets,” Clark said. “During this event … our maintenance staff of six has been operating continuously in two 12 hour shifts to apply sand and deicer. During the day we have two crews working and one crew at night.”

The city does not split work with other agencies that maintain roads in the city, Clark added, because they operate outside of the city limits. The state Department of Transportation handled state Route 18 and the off ramps while King County was responsible for unincorporated areas outside the city.

“I am very proud of the hard work our crews are doing to make sure the primary and secondary streets in the city of Maple Valley are passable and safe,” Clark said.

Ohashi with Kent Fire said it would be good for everyone to take advantage of the current thaw to learn from this storm and get ready for the next one.

“So many people were unprepared for what they faced in this last go around with the snow and frozen conditions,” Ohashi said. “Now that we have a little bit of a break… take advantage of the fact that we’re having better weather for the next few days and stock up on things you need.”

He suggested winterizing cars by getting chains for vehicles that don’t have all-wheel or four wheel drive as well as make sure there are extra clothes and blankets to stay warm if for some reason you get stranded in the next storm. When another storm may come along it’s also wise to make sure the car’s gas tank is full “so if you do get stuck you can keep your engine running until help arrives.”

In addition, Ohashi suggested getting flashlights for the house, check furnaces and fireplaces as well as have those inspected if they haven’t had their annual check up.

“If you get stranded for a couple days, what would you do? Do you have enough to get you through?,” Ohashi said. “Take advantage of the relative calm between storms and look at what went wrong this time and make sure it doesn’t go wrong next time.”