Wednesday, March 5, at 6:30 a.m. Sara George here reporting. Its colder in Lawrence County than anywhere else in D-12. Know why? There are no clouds in Lawrence County. Our astute snow and ice veteran Terry Tackett, point woman this morning in the District Office in Pikeville, clued me in to this obvious phenomenon. Letcher County has temps in the 30s, and Letcher County has cloud cover, which keeps the warmer air from rising as fast as it does in places with no cloud cover. My point is this: every time we work a weather event, we learn something new. Every event is a little different, and this winter has been full of different. Salt works down to the mid-20s. Liquid works down to about 12 degrees. The more ice you have under the snow, the longer it takes to break it up and move it off the road, especially when the thermometer stays below 10 degrees for hour upon hour. Sometimes its like watching water boil, waiting for the mercury to hit 25 or so - when we know we can start to make some headway. Snowfighters are out making a pass through all the A and B routes. Then they will head to the C routes, the roads which are still in the worst shape. Today will be a C route day. Those of you who live on a C route should see some good progress today. By the way, we do not have a danger of running out of salt. The stuff just doesnt work as cold as its been the last couple of nights. We are trying to use it conservatively, not waste it. For example, if you plow through a road, put down a layer of salt, go to your next road and do the same, and your next, and then come back to the first road and plow some more . . . well, if the temperature hasnt been warm enough for that first layer of salt to work while you were doing your other roads, then youre just plowing it off the road the second time around. This snow and ice removal isnt as easy and straightforward as it may seem to those of us whove never actually done it. So lets continue to be patient. Just because the roads didnt get cleared as quickly as they have during the past couple of events, doesnt mean were not working hard. It means the weather, especially the temperature, is working against us instead of cooperating with us. Well get down to black pavement. Thats our job. Your job is to be safe out there -- buckle up, make sure your lights work, keep plenty of gas in your vehicle, leave early, take your time, and take care of each other out there. Hope each of you has a day that is blessed with good things and good people.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 11:44:12 +0000
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