I don't suppose that they were sitting there with their minds in neutral and their thumbs up their backsides, or do you think that is the case?
Well, if they ran out of space to dump the snow, which is not exactly an impossible scenario to think of in a contingency planning session when the pressure is off, how would you describe it?
As to what could be done, maybe some effective contingency planning for dealing with large volumes of snow would be a good start?