Snow means flurry of work for road crews across Western Pennsylvania

Many, if not all, municipal road crews around the area might agree with Plum public works director Bill Binnie: “It’s like Groundhog Day.”

And it’s true — snowflakes flew on a daily basis for the first 16 days of January, said Timothy Cermak, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Moon. But only 11 of those days had measurable snowfall.

Barely halfway through the month, the region is close to hitting the monthly average snowfall for January, which is 13.3 inches. Through Thursday, there has been 11.8 inches of snow at the weather service’s office, Cermak said.

The plowing and salting response that has followed can definitely be taxing on road crews whose work keeping towns functioning often goes overlooked, or they only hear the complaints of snowy roads, said Austin Erhard, interim public works director in Hempfield.

“They’re dedicated to coming out, early morning, late night, sometimes both in the same day,” he said.

Road crews have been working around the clock over the last couple weeks, traveling the same streets and alleys, sometimes multiple times a day, to make sure the roads are drivable. Each municipality has different challenges — squeezing a plow truck through tight roads, traffic and hilly and uneven terrain.

Size matters

It all comes down to the size of municipality and its road crew to determine how fast, or slow, roads get cleared.

For a large municipality such as Hempfield, where there are 250 miles of road to maintain and 26 snow routes, it typically takes five to six hours to finish up, Erhard said. It’s a couple hours less if the crew of about 30 are salting the roads only.

Compare that to Fawn where the lone public works employee can finish plowing and salting 11 miles of township road in three to four hours.

“It’s a one-person operation,” said Pam Ponsart, secretary/treasurer, adding that three township supervisors can help in the event of a bad storm.

In North Irwin — slightly smaller at nearly 4 miles of road to maintain, including alleys — three part-timers take a few hours to salt and clear the roads, said council President Sue Kochman.

Pittsburgh has nearly 1,200 miles of road, and it can take well over 24 hours to get everywhere, especially if there’s 3 inches or more of snow, said Chris Hornstein, director of public works. Salting all streets with 50 trucks takes right around 24 hours.

There are 79 trucks in operation that are manned by about 170 employees.

“These past weeks, with multiple winter weather events, have been especially challenging, but our team has worked tirelessly, even with added overtime and strain on personnel and management,” he said.

Greensburg streets supervisor Tom Bell said he sometimes makes lunch for the crews to boost morale as they clear 55 miles of street and 22 miles of alley. It typically takes about three hours for one snowfall, but with the recent consistent snow, they’ve been averaging five to six hours each time, he said.

City crews have clocked at least 30 hours of overtime in the past week.

“They get tired of that because they log a lot of miles,” Bell said.

Ligonier Township has its 94 miles of road broken up into seven routes, said manager Mike Strelic. It typically takes five hours to complete a route.

“At the moment, they are loving it, they are soaking up the overtime,” he said, adding that might change as winter wears on.

Plum’s 24-person crew works in two shifts during the winter so there is coverage from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., something that helped keep overtime costs down over the last few years, Binnie said. The borough has 153 miles of road broken down into routes of about 11 or 12 miles each.

“We’ve been pretty busy compared to the last couple years,” he said.

In similarly sized North Huntingdon, 16 trucks can salt 162 miles of roads in about three hours. That job takes at least twice as long if crews are clearing snow, said John Hochlinski, public works director.

Setting priorities

Public works officials said they focus on getting the heavily traveled main roads cleared first, and school bus routes typically are prioritized. Hilly streets are important too, said Zachary Filous, borough manager in Freeport, where four crew members maintain 7.36 miles of road. After that comes side streets, rural and dead-end roads.

There’s a constant monitoring of conditions — from forecasted weather and its expected arrival to a tires-on-the-pavement look at the roads. Bell sometimes doesn’t sleep if he knows winter weather is on its way.

“Once you get behind, you never get caught up,” he said.

PennDOT has agreements with many municipalities, such as Freeport, to clear state roads in their boundaries. But in Allegheny County, there are still about 2,100 lane miles for PennDOT to maintain. It typically takes two to three hours to complete a route, and highways have the highest priority, said press officer Steve Cowan.

Westmoreland PennDOT crews have about 2,500 snow lane miles to tend.

There are ways for residents to help — park close to the curb in towns with tight streets and give plow trucks space.

Public works officials expressed pride in their crews for doing what can be a thankless job, often in the cold and dark, on the miles of road they likely have memorized. Residents have been understanding for the most part during the wintry weather this season, officials said.

“We try our best. I get people that complain,” Binnie said. “We can’t be on every road.”