A snowplow drivers Sisyphean task: handling the Snowpocalypse The first Polar Vortex – a thing non-meteorologists had never heard of until this year – gave birth to a second and a third generation. Temperatures fell so low in places that throwing perfectly good hot water into the frigid air became a video meme. Snow fell in locations so southerly that their residents didnt have the requisite comforting wool socks, to say nothing of a good pair of Sorels to do the shoveling in. The snow choked Atlanta twice; Texans and Alabamians alike shared shocked Instagrams of snow on their front walks and backyards. Lions most certainly would have been lying down with lambs simply to stay warm, if only their zookeepers left them alfresco. And of course, the snowfall in places that are normally pretty snowy was equally biblical. The fat, middle part of the US is still digging out from the load that has been dumped on us for the last four months. In a year thats seen snow steal the headlines more often than not, its still sometimes easy to forget that its all got to get moved somewhere, and by someone. Around Ann Arbor, MI, moving a great deal of that snow falls to guys like Dan Clark, a snowplow driver for the Washtenaw County Road Commission (WCRC) on the Michigan State Trunk Line crew. I recently hitched a ride with Dan in his brand-spanking-new Freightliner 11SD plow truck to see just what its taken to keep the roads clear during this snow season. In the process, I learned a truckload about pushing powder. Dan has been on the WCRC crew since September of 2005. In the winter, his primary job is to run a snow route, driving a tremendously advanced Freightliner plow truck over a roughly three-mile stretch of I-94. His typical turnaround is the Jackson Road exit into and out of Ann Arbor, a little over a mile from my house. That means that, in a very real way, Dan has been my snowplow driver for almost a decade – a point that Id been clueless on until I climbed into his truck to watch him work. The WCRC is contracted by the Michigan Department of Transportation to maintain some 1,649 miles of roadway, with multiple garages across the county to handle the load, including the one I visited in Ann Arbor. As you might guess, that load has been pretty massive this year. The agency had a budget of $778,000 for winter maintenance this season – its current expenditures sit at $1.1 million. Salt is another bellwether in the field; right now WCRC is at 23,000 tons used versus a planned 19,000 tons for the full season. For Dan, all of that has meant some paychecks with 70 or more hours of overtime attached. Working all those hours means working early. There are morning people, hardcore morning people, and there are snowplow drivers. After a brief meeting with WCRC Director of Operations Jim Harmon about an upcoming weather event, Dan and I had agreed to meet up at the countys headquarters for the start of the day shift on Saturday morning. Day shift is accurate only in the strictest sense of timekeeping, as Im told Ill have to roll into the garage by 3:50 AM to make it for the 4:00 AM start. Anyone at Autoblog will tell you that Im at my best at the start of the day, but even my morning ardor wanes in the face of waking up a couple hours after Letterman. Of course, time is irrelevant to the weather and the roads, and while the day crew is finishing off breakfast over a rapid-fire morning meeting, the four-man night shift is already headed home, and the guys in the massive maintenance garage next door are up and moving. When the weather demands it, these trucks are out plowing 24 hours per day, less time for refilling their material (thats salt, or a mixture of salt and sand around here) and the inevitable maintenance issues that crop up from the seemingly unending workloads. In fact, by the time Dan has let me wander around the garage and take a set of photos of his recently cleaned-up rig, the rest of the drivers have cleared out and gotten to work. After Im handed an orange safety vest and climb up into the Freightliners cab (something that takes some doing, even if youre a six-foot, five-inch Dutchman like me), my watch reads 4:21 AM. Were late. The snow is falling lightly, its darker than a pocket outside, and Dan is downright convivial. We stop off by his 03 Ford F-150 – with the 5.4 V8 he assures me – so that he can grab a thermos of green tea. I had to give up coffee, he tells me with a smile and a laugh that Ill hear a hundred more times over the next few hours. Im pretty sure this time hes laughing at the way Im limply scrawling notes and trying not to nod off, simultaneously. Its not really until we pull out on Zeeb Road, headed for our circuitous, six-mile route around the highway, that it really sinks in what a monster of a truck Im riding in. No wheeled vehicle that loads out at over 45 tons is ever going to feel particularly quick, but theres certainly a palpable sensation of power when Dan puts the spurs to the turbocharged, 12.8-liter inline-six from Detroit Diesel (DD13). The engine was built with two missions in life: make mountains of torque with which to move mountains of stuff, and do it reliably over continuous running that would make most consumer vehicles quake. Rated for maximum outputs of 470 horsepower and 1,650 pound-feet of torque, the DD13 has enough power to push powder all day and night, including that which is required to run the hydraulics system that allows Dan to operate those critical plows. The rig Im riding in has a staggering amount of equipment welded, bolted or stuck to it. There are provisions for up to three plows, but were only running with two today (the front plow isnt workable on the highway): a belly plow under the truck (sometimes called a hydro or a scraper, depending on who you ask) and a massive retractable wing plow on the right side of the truck. The 14-foot dump box out back is made from stainless steel (a surprisingly new improvement, Im told), and feeds side- and rear-mounted material spreaders. There are two huge brine tanks affixed along the flanks of the box, as well (brine is sprayed with salt dispersal to help melt ice and snow). The county specified that these new plow trucks come with an onboard lubrication system for the hydraulic system – a $6,000 option – meaning one less piece of maintenance to do for drivers and mechanics. Inside, the cabin looks slightly downmarket compared to other $220,000 vehicles Ive been in, though the Freightliner wins outright on sheer gadget count. The gray plastic dash and wood trim are straight out of GMs Malaise-Era playbook, but the bevy of toggle switches and buttons add a lot of excitement for the five-year-old in me. The center console is littered with said switches, some conveniently marked out with stickers from a label gun, as well as a push-button transmission control that looks only slightly less user friendly than that which Aston Martin employs. Theres a big laydown steering wheel that seems standard for a truck in this class, and a super-cool, fighter-jet style joystick to control the various plows. Stuck up in the air between my rarely used seat and Dans full-air-ride throne, is a digital display that controls the salt application, or giving it a shot as they say in the plowing biz. Dan effortlessly explains all of this to me as we get started down a stretch of highway that Ill see a great number of times over the next eight hours or so. Theres some snow buildup on the road surface as we start out, not much more than a dusting, really, and practically zero traffic at this hour on a weekend. Even with the easy running, Im immediately impressed with the way Dan is able to operate three discrete systems while seamlessly answering my questions about his family, growing up in Brooklyn, MI near Michigan International Speedway, and his resulting NASCAR fandom.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 05:47:56 +0000