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PITTSBURG —
United States Postal Service mail carriers vow to deliver the mail through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night. That can be a tough battle to fight, especially in winter.
But the same could be said of the city crews that clear Pittsburg’s roads when winter storms hit. Often beginning just after sundown the day before snow or ice are expected to blanket the town, Director of Public Works Bill Beasley’s crews spread a sandy, salty defensive perimeter over the city streets and prepare for the onslaught. Then, in rotating shifts of three to four trucks, they’ll spend the next day fighting a war of attrition to fend off the vexing invader.
Sometimes they lose a battle — i.e., those irritatingly slick residential lanes. But they typically win the war, keeping the “arterial” roads relatively clean except in cases of extreme ice.
Bill Niggemann, the city’s street superintendent, said sacrificing the side streets is a concession that’s necessary to win that war. On the one hand, he said as he observed trucks reloading at the public works headquarters on Thursday, it’s a question of supply and logistics; after last week’s snow and ice storm, Niggemann ordered eight tons of sand and two tons of salt — the city uses a three-to-one mixture, and the salt keeps the sand from freezing — to replenish his supply. And munitions are expensive, though he wasn’t sure of the total cost.
“It’s not cheap,” he said. To put it into perspective, Crawford County uses about 300 tons of a similar mixture each winter.
And Niggemann has to consider future consequences.
“You don’t want more salt and sand on the streets than you need,” he said. “It eats them up.”
On the other hand, he said, is the more obvious reason. His trucks are rather large and unwieldy, and the residential streets, especially those where cars are allowed to park on both sides, are quite narrow. Leading an army into a bottleneck is a poor tactical decision, and there’s a reason commanders don’t like to use tanks in urban warfare.
Niggemann also has to consider collateral damage; there’s only one place those trucks can plow the snow, and it wouldn’t be a very popular move.
“We would have to go back and clear every driveway,” Niggemann said. “We’d be plowing in cars and you’d have people out with shovels everywhere.”
United States Postal Service mail carriers vow to deliver the mail through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night. That can be a tough battle to fight, especially in winter.
But the same could be said of the city crews that clear Pittsburg’s roads when winter storms hit. Often beginning just after sundown the day before snow or ice are expected to blanket the town, Director of Public Works Bill Beasley’s crews spread a sandy, salty defensive perimeter over the city streets and prepare for the onslaught. Then, in rotating shifts of three to four trucks, they’ll spend the next day fighting a war of attrition to fend off the vexing invader.
Sometimes they lose a battle — i.e., those irritatingly slick residential lanes. But they typically win the war, keeping the “arterial” roads relatively clean except in cases of extreme ice.
Bill Niggemann, the city’s street superintendent, said sacrificing the side streets is a concession that’s necessary to win that war. On the one hand, he said as he observed trucks reloading at the public works headquarters on Thursday, it’s a question of supply and logistics; after last week’s snow and ice storm, Niggemann ordered eight tons of sand and two tons of salt — the city uses a three-to-one mixture, and the salt keeps the sand from freezing — to replenish his supply. And munitions are expensive, though he wasn’t sure of the total cost.
“It’s not cheap,” he said. To put it into perspective, Crawford County uses about 300 tons of a similar mixture each winter.
And Niggemann has to consider future consequences.
“You don’t want more salt and sand on the streets than you need,” he said. “It eats them up.”
On the other hand, he said, is the more obvious reason. His trucks are rather large and unwieldy, and the residential streets, especially those where cars are allowed to park on both sides, are quite narrow. Leading an army into a bottleneck is a poor tactical decision, and there’s a reason commanders don’t like to use tanks in urban warfare.
Niggemann also has to consider collateral damage; there’s only one place those trucks can plow the snow, and it wouldn’t be a very popular move.
“We would have to go back and clear every driveway,” Niggemann said. “We’d be plowing in cars and you’d have people out with shovels everywhere.”
So the city focuses mainly on what Beasley called the “arterial” streets, or the main thoroughfares through town such as Broadway, Rouse, Centennial, Fourth and other streets — they also hit the school zones. Sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice a limb to save the body.
And the crews work round the clock until the job is done. Niggemann said the first shift for the latest round of snow started at about 10 p.m. Wednesday, and that crews would work until about 7 p.m. Thursday. And the whole process could start again this weekend.
“It’s very, very time-consuming,” Niggemann said, praising his workers. “We go until the sun comes out and hope for the best.”
