With temperatures in the 70s last Wednesday and Thursday, it was tough to think about winter and, worse yet, snow.
But, as the mercury plunged Friday, that was all that was on the minds of an army of 18 Barton County Road and Bridge Department employees taking part in the annual Snow Rodeo at the county lot on South Washington Street last week. This is an exercise during which the staff members hop into their equipment and practice to hone their skills for when bad weather eventually comes.
“It’s pretty important to be ready,” said County Works Director Darren Williams of the simulations. “We don’t want to be scrambling should the forecast call for snow.”
Using sand for snow, they ran plows, graders, loaders and trucks. They maneuvered through cones and rehearsed the basic tasks required to remove snow.
“Staff learns safety, and how to deal with the conditions of the road,” he said. He has a few new staff members, and it is especially important for the new drivers to learn the basics of plowing snow, which can be harrowing and dangerous.
The rodeo was the culmination of two and a half days of winter preparation.
The first part of snow training was a round-table discussion Thursday morning. Subjects covered included the planning and procedures for winter warfare.
Barton County is ready to deploy 14 trucks (outfitted with plows on the front and sand/salt spreaders on the back) and four motor graders into service to move snow, and there will be Road and Bridge Department employees responding to operate skid steers, all-terrain vehicles and front-end loaders.
They also went through all the rolling stock to check lights, fuses, hydraulics, lubrication and general operation.
There are nearly 400 miles of paved blacktop roads maintained by Road and Bridge. In addition, there are the entrance to the Hoisington Activity Center, and county building parking lots (which will increase this year with the addition of the temporary county offices used during the Courthouse HVAC replacement project).
“Each driver is assigned a truck and a (snow clearing) route,” Road and Bridge Dispatcher John Remmert. These routes include roughly 10% of the total road miles.
Another part of the training last week involved the new drivers running their route. They had to familiarize themselves with it, learn any obstacles and find spots where they could turn around if necessary.
The drivers will run about 250 miles with each snow-ice call-out, Remmert said. These runs can be in blizzard, or even white-out, conditions.
Road and Bridge divides the county in half, he said. The foreman then allocates resources where they need to go in the event of a storm.
“We haven’t had a major snow storm for five years,” he said. “Are we due?”
