Photo courtesy of Car2Go

As WMATA works on getting residents back on the rails today, carsharing companies have a major shoveling effort ahead of them.

While Zipcar never suspended service in the region, many of their cars were left buried by the storm. To get customers on the road soon as possible, Zipcar started deploying crews yesterday, but faced some barriers in the form of snow plows.

“Sometimes they’re our friend, sometimes they’re not,” says Zipcar’s general manager Scott Hall. After digging out dozens of cars yesterday, over 30 of them had to be shoveled out again after plows re-covered them with snow.

Still, with 25 crew members working on it, Hall says he hopes to have all 150 curbside vehicles in the city dug out by this evening. And this time, they’re not just relying on online resources to see which streets have been plowed. “The challenge with those is that trucks make multiple passes, so streets may not be completely clear, ” Hall says, so they are checking in with local agencies to get progress updates.

After suspending service, car2go plans to initiate a “Dig Day” tomorrow to get the company’s two-door smart cars on the streets again, says spokesperson Brad Ducey. The company has about 800 cars in the region.

Not only will car2go’s fleet team get to work, but members are invited to dig out vehicles (plus paths to the street) in exchange for 60 minutes of drive time for each car that they dig out, Ducey says. Members must take before and after pics of the snowed-in vehicle and email them to the company’s member services address.

As things are still in flux because of the weather, the company doesn’t know exactly when service will resume, Ducey adds.

D.C. officials requested today that residents stay off the roads as they continue to plow through them, and warned of potentially icy conditions as temperatures warm up and then cool back down.