snow men

By Tami Lange Mosser
February 25, 2014
371

There are 12 men in Wooster who cringe every time it starts to snow. Whether the flakes fly at midday or at midnight, they wait for the call. And when the call comes, as it has so many times this winter, they are ready for the hours ahead. These are the guys from the City of Woosters Public Properties and Maintenance Division. They plow. They salt. And sometimes they do it for 12 to 14 hours on end, stopping long enough only to re-load, re-fuel, hit the bathroom and grab a hot dog or a soda. According to division manager Daryl Decker, The service level has climbed this year. But the problem is, he said, so has the winter. Over the past year, Decker explained, the division has worked out a system with the Wooster Police Department on identifying the type of snow event the city is having. In the past, an officer would contact dispatch if roads seemed to be getting bad. The dispatcher would call a PPM supervisor, who would have to come into the citys Maintenance Building on Mechanicsburg Road, evaluate the situation and call in drivers accordingly. The drivers would then have to get into the building, get their trucks and plows and move out to the six routes across the city. It was, Decker said, a very delayed system to get them out there. Now, the officer can make the call and tell the supervisor what the situation is, be it ice or snow or a mixture of both and what parts of town are affected. The supervisor calls drivers immediately to apprise them of the conditions and get the process moving. We get out there in about half the time we used to, Decker said. His division also purchased a new type of road salt this year, Decker said. We had it in stock as a trial in this ridiculous sub-zero weather, he said. It doesnt take as much material to start the melting and the material works better at lower temperatures than the previous salt did. And there are other upgrades. It used to be, Decker said, that if the snow started after 8 p.m., drivers typically didnt get sent out until 4 a.m. But, Decker conceded, there are still people on the roads at night, so weve now taken the stance that the roads will be clean when the snow falls. The drivers also have agreed that no one goes home until everyones route is done, even if that means helping another driver finish up. Each drivers route consists of primary roads, then secondary roads. Alleys are the last ones the list, Decker said, and often have to be done using a pickup truck with a plow. Theres no favoritism. They start here (at the garage) and they move their way through in a systematic approach. A few of the drivers have gone at least 20 days without a day off. Drivers in the Utilities Division have been called in to cover days off, sick days and vacation days, he said. That division is just as busy, he said, since cold weather and heavy rains mean plenty of broken water lines and backed up sewers. Even with all that, Decker said, weve had several indignant responses to our snow removal in the past few months. Hes got a full email inbox to prove it. One writer complained the city doesnt use enough salt. The next writer said the city uses too much salt. Another email criticized the drivers for not getting the job done as quickly as it is done in Orrville. Yet another said the Ohio Department of Transportation gets on top of bad roads much quicker than in Wooster. And those were the nicer ones. People are frustrated, Decker said. I get that. The simple solution, one citizen said, is to hire more drivers and buy more trucks. Thats an issue not only of economics, but also of time. Forget the fact that a dump truck with a plow costs upwards of $150,000, Decker said, theres also the matter of what to do with the workers when the winter has passed. And its not as though anyone can just jump into the drivers seat and start plowing. Just ask Josh Vizzo, who has been with the city for just a few years and who, on most days, is employed as one of two city mechanics, tending to the Woosters 280 city-owned vehicles. You just do it, Vizzo said of salting and plowing. Theres a lot of stuff going on at once. While pushing a 16-foot wide plow, the driver also monitors the salt load – how much there is, how much is let out, how wide the salt spray needs to be. Salting, Decker said, can be done at 15 to 18 miles per hour, while plowing goes at half that speed. In many cases, drivers may salt before they plow, in order to keep the snow and ice from freezing to the ground as other vehicles pack it down. If snow is salted, it pops loose from the road and rolls to the edge when plowed. If not, it just gets compacted further. Wooster has 133 centerline miles of paved roads, Decker said. But seldom does a road get cleared with one pass of the plow. Two lane roads take two passes, while multi-lane roads (like those in Woosters north end) will take even longer to clear. Citywide, Decker said, it takes three hours to salt, but a minimum of 12 hours to plow. And the drivers are only human. At the end of eight hours, a driver has to come into the garage for what Decker called talk time. I want you to look at me, Decker tells drivers, and tell me youre okay to go four more hours. If, at the end of 12 hours, the driver doesnt have a lot left to do, he can go to 14 hours. And thats it. I will not, Decker said, allow a driver in a seat more than 14 hours. Even when the snow is over, the work is not finished. We dont have a slow period, Decker said. First and foremost, there are the potholes, which are being temporarily filled with cold patch, since the weather is too cold to make blacktop. Every call is put on a priority list and the city is required to respond in a reasonable time to get the potholes taken care of. One supervisor was out in the middle of the night to put up a high water sign on Grosjean Road at the south end of town. The request came from a police officer, who had found man stranded there in his car in the high water. And the 10,000 storm sewer inlets have to be kept free of debris. And the traffic lights have to work. And the vehicles have to be serviced. And when spring comes, the parks will need cleaned up. Trees will need trimmed. And by fall, the leaf pickup will start. The city does use some seasonal workers during the warmer months, but the core staff hangs on all year long. There are two workers who have more than 20 years of service. But, Decker noted, a number of workers accepted the citys voluntary separation package a few years back ad a few more have retired since then. Five workers have less than five years of experience. And things could be worse, Vizzo said. Wooster could have a storm that lasts three or four days. Otherwise, he said, this is just about what he expects from a northeast Ohio winter. This is not a job, Decker said, for someone who lives off praise."

snow men

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