PEA RIDGE — Scraping of snow plows can be heard throughout Pea Ridge, as city employees have been hard at work clearing streets in the town after this winter wonderland closed schools and businesses throughout northwest Arkansas.
To prepare for a storm like the one Saturday night, according to Nathan See of the Pea Ridge Street Department, city employees put salt spreaders on the trucks and get the snow plows ready. At word of an approaching storm, they make sure everything is ready to go, including the trucks, chainsaws, plows, sanders, tractors and even the employees’ cell phones.
City employees are at Mother Nature’s mercy, working on call even in the middle of the night.
For this storm, they hit the streetsat 1 a.m. Sunday and worked until mid-morning. They tried to get some sleep, then headed back out later that afternoon to keep up with the falling snow.
Larry Majors, Pea Ridge Street Department superintendent, said they will wait until it starts getting slick to get out there with the sanders. They head out two to a truck.
“You don’t know when something will go wrong,” See said.
The city operates three trucks to clear snow and ice from streets, one with a plow, one with a plow and a sander and one with only a sander. Inside the sanders is a mixture of sand and salt, to both melt the ice and provide traction. Since the weather is unpredictable, the city stocks up on sand and salt in the off season.
“Sometimes you have to call in for more salt,” Majors said.
All the supplies needed for onetruck, including the truck itself, plow, spreader, etc., can cost the city about $35,000, according to Majors.
The city only uses calcium chloride in dire situations, such as last winter’s ice storm, since it is so costly and hard to get in this area.
The Arkansas Department of Transportation maintains the state highways in the area, such as Arkansas Highway 72. Benton County will maintain county roads, such as Benton County Highway 40. Pea Ridge keeps up with all the streets inside city limits.
See said the Street Department starts with the hills and curves, roads that would prove most challenging in inclement weather.
“We will do what we can do to make the roads safer for the community. We want people to beable to get out and get to the main roads,” See said. “Even if you can get out of your driveway, you aren’t going to be able to get a up a hill that hasn’t been treated.”
Back to back storms this weekwill keep the Street Department workers, Majors and See, plus Tommy Thompson, Tom Sheets and Gary Tuszynski, on their toes, and, hopefully, the city’s residents safe on the streets.
News, Pages 1 on 01/06/2010