Butler County’s highway department has focused on a single task over the last several days, and it’s one it rarely has to deal with.
“We’ve been going since Monday morning removing snow and dealing with all the issues we’ve had out here,” said highway department Superintendent Robbie Moore on Thursday.
Freezing fuel, broken blades and persistent snow, Moore said, all have been issues this week.
“Over the last several days, with the temperatures as low as they’ve been, we’ve had some difficulties with not only the roads, but also with our equipment and things at the shop,” Moore said.
On top of that, extensive snow removal isn’t built into the department’s budget.
“With our location, our budget doesn’t really focus on this type of work. It’s been several years since we’ve had any (significant) snow, and it’s not something we can plan on every year,” Moore explained.
His 26 employees each worked extensive hours trying to clear snow and ice from the county’s roads, while shop mechanics worked around the clock to keep things moving.
“My mechanics have been working their tails off trying to keep everything going,” Moore said.
Deciding when to send crews out into the weather also has been an issue for Moore.
“One of my hardest decisions is when we were going to get started plowing. Do you start early, or do you wait and let it slow down,” Moore questioned. “My theory on it is to wait until it’s completely done and get it all off at once instead of burning up two or three sets of blades per machine plus extra fuel and everything else” by making several attempts.
Early Thursday morning, road grader operator David Shular could be found making passes to clear snow along County Road 469.
“We’ve been working a lot of hours this week trying to keep up with all the snow and ice, and the cold weather and ice makes it really hard to get the roads clean,” Shular said.
Shular even noted problems getting his work done efficiently, caused by sightseers on the county’s roads.
Back at the county highway shed, other crews were mixing salt brine, of which tens of thousands of gallons have been used daily by trucks carrying it 300 gallons at a time.
Chuck Henson and Kelly Wilson dumped bag after bag of rock salt into a large tank full of water to create a salt brine to be sprayed on area roads.
“We probably use 250 pounds of salt per tank,” said Henson.
That initial tank filters the brine into a second, larger tank, which then feeds a 6,500-gallon tank situated outside the shop. Trucks fill their 300-gallon tanks multiple times per day from there.
“We’ll be putting salt in there quite regularly, every 10 to 15 minutes,” explained Wilson. “Each truck will come in here on average six or seven times in an eight-hour day. At 300 gallons per tank, that’s about 2,100 gallons per truck, so we deplete 6,500 gallons pretty easily.”
With moderating temperatures and winter weather out of the area now, Moore said, he still asks for patience from county residents.
“We’ve got people who just don’t understand,” Moore said. “We don’t want it no more than they do because it’s nothing but a hassle for us.”
It’s also a safety issue for his crews.
“Wednesday night around 8, it started getting pretty dangerous. I had graders sliding off into ditches, and finally I shut it down because I didn’t want anybody to get hurt or tear up a $250,000 machine,” Moore said.
“This has been one of the worst snow storms we’ve had in probably the last five or six years, and it just takes time,” said Shular. “People are anxious to get their roads cleaned, but it takes time to get them cleaned. They just have to give us a little time to get to them.”
And there may be further problems ahead.
“I’m going to say the next month or better after this, it’s going to get to be our worst time,” Moore said.
All the moisture on the county’s gravel roads, he said, will begin to cause sinking issues.
“In the weeks to come, we’re going to have roads failing everywhere because it will be warmer and wet,” Moore said. “The roads are going to get real soft and muddy and nasty and fall in, so it’s definitely going to cause issues there.”
Still, Moore said, he and his crews will persist.
“It’s not something we want to be doing, but it’s one of those deals going into it we know we’ve got to do,” he said.