car2go asks D.C. customers to pitch in and shovel

Probably a good idea @car2goDC closed shop this weekend ... #snowmaggedon2016 pic.twitter.com/arY2lwgWKC

— Emily Kaldjian (@emilykaldjian) January 23, 2016

It’s hard enough to dig out your own car — but just imagine having to dig out an entire fleet of them. That’s the dilemma facing several of the popular car sharing services, like ZipCar and car2go that have cars scattered around the area.

Take the plight of ZipCar, which has roughly 150 vehicles in the District as reported by DCist:

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.

According to ZipCarDC’s Twitter feed the company is making progress slowing freeing cars from their snowy coverings.

The folks are car2go, which did suspend service, have come up with a novel solution. They’re offering 60 minutes of “drive time” to drivers willing to grab a shovel and help dig out a car. However, a company spokesman told DCist isn’t not clear when they’ll reopen the service.

And folks are already responding.