Below are a number of factors that impact
the Highway Department’s winter operations and response to the winter snow and
ice season.
Meeting the expectations of the citizens makes this the
toughest job we do. The drivers try
their best to do a good job on the 17 snow routes in the Township.
Service can be affected by a missing driver or a truck out
for repair. In an effort to maintain
service readiness seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, a mechanic is
called in to support fleet readiness. While
equipment for snow and ice removal is routinely maintained and prepared well in
advance of the snow and ice season, it is not uncommon for trucks, salt
equipment and plows themselves to experience failure during use.
Cul-de-sacs are nice to live on but difficult to
service. Cul-de-sacs by their very design have a bigger footprint then a
normal straightaway road. There is
little room to put the extra snow. Residents
living in cul-de-sacs should expect the piling of snow in all right-of-way
space available. Often the final
clearing of snow from a cul-de-sac requires a smaller plow truck to return after
the main snow event.
We plow main routes continuously; allotments have second
priority, and cleaning cul-de-sacs is last. All routes are run in the
same direction each time by the same driver so that the driver knows the
obstacles and routing places to dump snow.
Residents should expect to find snow plowed from the road to be placed
on the side of the street and into culvert ditches (right-of–way spaces). Both residential and commercial driveways
meet the public road. It is in this
right-of-way space one, on occasion, will encounter plowed piles of snow from
the road. It is permissible for the
Township to place plowed snow in these right-of-way spaces. It is a violation of Ohio law for a person to
remove snow from the end of a driveway or from around a mailbox and throw it
back into the road that was plowed.
We continuously monitor the snow and ice conditions.
For general slippery conditions, we have six routes mapped out to treat the
main roads. For a full snow or ice
condition event, all twenty-two trucks are place into services.
Our trucks initially make a pass up one traveled lane and
back down the other. After the entire route has had these initial passes,
the drivers go back to widen, clean intersections and clean cul-de-sacs on
their route. Depending on when and how
long the snow and ice event lasts will dictate how soon our crews can get into
a “clean-up” response to the event.
Likewise, drivers must be provided some time to sleep to ensure safe
operation of these large trucks and plows.
The amount of road salt used in a season is not related to
the number of inches of snow. It
is really based upon of the number of slippery road conditions. A light
slippery glaze will take as much salt as a four-inch snowfall to provide safe
traffic movement.
Snow and slippery conditions do not work by a clock. If snow starts at 1:00 a.m., we will have time
to send crews out and have the roads in shape for the 7:00 a.m. business and school traffic. If it first gets bad at 6:00 a.m., we will not
be able to have the roads ready at 7:00 a.m. Nature does not always cooperate with morning
rush-hour traffic.
Snow plowing on residential streets with cul-de-sacs,
mailboxes, and sod berms is much more difficult and requires more driver skill
than county work. County and State plows run primarily straight on their
routes with few intersections to clean and no cul-de-sacs to plow.
Mailboxes pose another challenge. We sometimes hear from homeowners that we
leave snow in front of mailboxes and that the post office may not deliver their
mail. or we hear that we hit the mailbox. Mailboxes often are located
in the right-of-way, which is the same place snow is plowed to by our
crews. The drivers do their best to keep
snow pushed back, but the amount of snow may pile up over the winter months
before a significant thaw occurs. Our
drivers make every effort not to damage mailboxes, but often times the weight
of the snow causes damage.
Avoiding traffic hazards and driving safely during snow
removal service is the responsibility of the drivers. Cleaning of intersections
requires skilled backing and maneuvering. Township trucks must back in and around main
road intersections to clean allotment entrances. Please keep a considerable safe distance from
the trucks should you encounter a truck backing and maneuvering to get an
intersection opened.
During some winters we experience extreme changes in
temperature resulting in the roads going through numerous freeze and thaw
cycles. Damages to road edges are
minimized if the ground is frozen prior to the snow. When the ground is
soft, the slightest snow blade intrusion or truck wheel transgression may cause
a muddy situation.
Please familiarize yourself with the Township’s Snow Parking Ban.