GRAND CHUTE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The 33rd annual American Public Works Association (APWA) Snow Plow Road-eo took place Thursday at the Fox Cities Stadium in Grand Chute.
Eric Dundee is one of the committee organizers and former president of the APWA Wisconsin Chapter. Although there’s no snow on the ground right now, he says this is the best time to practice before the winter season hits.
“We do this in the summer, it’s practice because in the winter you have blowing snow, ice, you know. All the different weather conditions on top of pedestrians, cars parked, different snow drifts, could be garbage trucks or garbage cans on the street.”
There are two courses, each consisting of two trucks and a backup truck on the side, bringing the total to five trucks provided by the city of Milwaukee. Dundee explains how this can translate to real life.
“We try to make the course as realistic as possible. So we have what we call sweeping turns. For most people, that would be going around intersections, going in your subdivisions, going around the city streets, where there’s cars and parked obstacles, as we call them… The idea is, we’re trying to give people that are driving these trucks the most real training and competition they have.”
And the work shifts are not so much on a day-to-day basis, but in response to the weather.
Dundee explains, “With new meteorology and actually working with news media, we actually get better forecasts now, all the time. So the idea is, we’re trying to give our workers as much advanced notice as possible on the schedule. We might say, ‘Hey, snow’s coming, you know. They tell us it’s going to be icy about about two o’clock in the morning, so we’re going to have you come in at 11.'”
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