GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – It’s the next wave of action for Green Bay Public Works as more snow is coming into the area.
The past couple of weeks has been difficult as the department has had to battle seemingly continuous snowfall.
This has crews working around the clock and doing little else.
“Public works this is what we do during the winter,” says Chris Pirlot, Operations Director. “Eat, plow, sleep, repeat.”
According to him, the past couple of weeks have been particularly tough due to the almost non-stop accumulation.
Preemptive tactics become less effective, or in some cases impossible, without bare pavement to utilize.
One example is brine, which can only be used by itself if there are bare roads.
“We don’t have the opportunity to pre-treat, because all we would be doing is spraying the brine on top of some snow accumulation,” he explains.
While Mother Nature has handicapped the tactics they can employ, it has forced an around-the-clock emphasis to be placed on old-fashioned plowing and salt treatment.
So much snow has fallen recently that crews have been often putting in 16-hour “max” shifts, which is the longest they can work continuously for a stretch.
That type of work schedule can be taxing when done frequently for a number of weeks, but Pirlot adds that it’s what these individuals sign up for.
“We’ve had these types of events throughout the decades,” he says. “You adapt to it, you deal with it, because that’s our primary core of duty in the winter is to keep the streets open and passable.”
And to keep the streets open and passable, that means using a lot of salt.
Has the demand been high enough to keep an eye on how much is left, though?
“Salt stock has been a concern in past winters,” says Pirlot. “We’re just starting to take a look at it.”
He explains that the department has a “salt reserve,” which is allocated to public works in the situation that their salt usage increases to a point where they exceed their normal allocation for the season.
“We probably will dip into our reserves, because we’ve had the big rush of snow right now,” he says. “But, we’re not losing sleep over running out of salt.”
