MARC JACOBS
Hutch Post
Now that the winter storm has moved on, we invited Hutchinson Public works director Cecil Weible to talk about the snow removal.
He said that his crews have been busy. They have had crews out twenty-four hours a day for the last three days.
Temperatures made the difference in how they decided to treat the clean-up from the storm. Because of the frigid temperatures, they elected to plow first.
Weible said “In these temperatures salt takes a very long time to activate and work. “
They concentrated on plowing first, get as much of the snow off the road. After they got to the point where there was no more plowing to be done other than widening then they started to put the salt down.
Not only did they treat the roads differently, but they also handled the snow removal differently because of the snow type.
They decided not to pre-treat this time. They said with the wind plowing and the snow type the pretreatment would have caused the snow to stick, and mother nature actually helped by blowing the snow off the roads.
Now that the sun is out and warmer temperatures are ahead, there is a new concern that crews are prepared for.
Once the snow starts melting, crews will keep salt on it. The worst part is you have melting during the day, but at night it freezes, and you begin to have black ice. Crews will be out putting salt down, keeping the roads in that condition.
Weible said that if you see issues, or have questions, feel free to contact public works.