|
Just blame in on the weather gods
Nor-easter fizzles but the plows didn't
Ed
Fontaine is fried. It’s a little after 6 a.m. Friday and he’s pulled
another all-nighter. He’s tired of plowing snow, tired of the ups
and downs of Chesterfield Hill, tired of blind corners on Hurricane
Road. He wearily pulls his city-owned orange dump truck up to the
fuel pumps at 350 Marlboro St., fills the tank and drives off into
the weekend for a long rest.
Fontaine, of Swanzey, is a 28-year snow-plowing veteran of the Keene
Highway Department. Wearing a Stihl baseball cap, he’s been on
snow-removal duty for the last 30 hours or so, having first been
called in Thursday at midnight. That’s when the forecast was for a
straightforward 12 to 18 inches of snow.
But,
this being New England, weather systems can change rapidly between
the 6 and 11 p.m., forecast.
“It’s been a tough one,” he says. “Heavy, wet stuff. Makes you slide
all over the place. Can’t steer theKeene Highway Superintendent
Bruce Tatro began paying close attention to the forecast on Tuesday.
Like Fontaine, Tatro’s also a 28-year veteran of the highway
department — the last 16 as superintendent — and it’s his job to map
out snow-plowing strategy. By Wednesday, when the National Weather
Service issued a winter storm warning, Tatro and Co. were on full
alert.
The
snow was expected to begin Thursday between 1 and 3 a.m., so Tatro
called in his crew at midnight to pre-treat the roads.
Keene uses 15 plows, eight of which also spread salt and sand, and
four sidewalk tractors. They treat 123 miles of roads, plus the four
lanes of Main Street, West Street and Winchester Street require
extra attention. Every driver has his own route. No one goes home
until everyone’s done.
“The
guys really take pride in doing a good job,” says Tatro, who is on
the board of directors of the N.H. Road Agents Association. “We’re
typically on the higher end of technology than most towns. And we’re
not afraid to try new things.”
One
of those new things has come to be known as “magic minus zero,” or
“magic salt.” It’s a concoction of magnesium chloride and a
byproduct of brewing beer that is sprayed on the salt. It looks and
smells like molasses.
Salt
is effective only at 20 degrees and above; “magic” salt melts snow
down to 15-below. Highway officials from other cities and towns have
come to take a look this winter.
“It’s like an anti-freeze for salt and it’s less corrosive, more
environmentally friendly,” Tatro says. “That last storm when
everyone’s roads were snow-covered and ours were black-topped?
That’s why.”
Not
all experiments have been successful. A few years ago, Keene tried
using a chemical that was supposed to limit the bouncing effect of
salt hitting the road. It didn’t work.
Long
before the snow falls, the trucks and plows are inspected by the
fleet crew. Tires are kicked and air pressures checked, plow edges
sharpened, spreaders readied. That kind of thing.
“We
do (maintenance) a couple of days ahead of time. We don’t want to
say, ‘Oops, it’s time to go salting and my truck’s broken,’ ” Tatro
says.
Tatro labels 12 to 18 inches “a more than once around” storm, so his
crew is prepared for an around-the-clock marathon. It’s not unusual
to work 30 straight hours with only short breaks. If the storm
lingers for days, “extended operations” kick in and members of the
water department will relieve the highway department.
Before the roads turn white, they are treated with a salt-based
brine that helps prevent icing (300 pounds per lane mile). The
spread rate is computer-controlled, so the same amount is applied
whether the truck is traveling 5 mph or 25 mph. Tatro remembers when
they shoveled salt down a hole in the truck’s body to the spreader.
But
this week’s storm is tricky and confounds the forecasters. Instead
of snowing, it begins as a heavy rain. It turns to a thick, wet snow
at the onset of Thursday’s morning commute.
Plows generally aren’t sent out until there are 2 inches of snow. In
Keene, Thursday’s storm barely meets that standard, but the water
content is unusually high.
Ideally, the goal during the day is keep the roads passable, “get
people home from work,” Tatro says. Evening is when plows will take
a break, letting the snow pile up on secondary roads. The real work
gets done between midnight and 6 a.m. Anything to be out of traffic,
Fontaine says.
“We
get the finger a lot; get sworn at a lot,” says Fontaine, who drives
the oldest truck in the fleet, a 1990 Ford that will soon be
retired.
On
Thursday, the Keene crews plow until about 5 p.m., then return at 11
p.m., when the tail of the storm surprisingly whips around and dumps
another few inches on the ground. Fontaine says there wasn’t much
they could do to prevent the coating of ice underneath.
“These storms are the worst. You can see it right there,” he says,
pointing to the ice-crusted surface.”
Freezing rain is the most frustrating and most expensive because of
chemical usage. In Keene, snow presents challenges on the four-lane
roads, where two plows will work in tandem. The hills can also be
tricky, Tatro says, along with winding Hurricane Road.
The
new rotary on Court Street in front of Cheshire Medical Center
hasn’t been a problem. “It hasn’t been as horrible as we thought it
was going to be,” Tatro says.
Mailboxes are the most common casualties of plowing, and Tatro says
usually it’s the snow being pushed against them that knocks them
over. The city will replace, for free, all mailboxes damaged by city
plows, as long as the boxes met U.S. Postal Service regulations.
Other common complaints are driveways filled by passing plows and
unplowed sidewalks. Tatro says it takes about two days to plow all
sidewalks after a heavy snowfall.
Snow
is temporarily piled up at various locations inside the city. After
a night off, the highway crew will start hauling those piles to a
15-acre plot at its old headquarters on 580 Main St.
“And
then we’re ready for the next storm,” Tatro says. |
