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Thursday, Dec. 26, 2002 - 3:20 p.m.

48 hours off the clock, 9 hours of sleep�.

Pardon me if this entry is loopy. More loopy than normal, anyway.

I worked straight through Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning plowing snow. I took a very short nap about 5 am Christmas day because I couldn�t keep my eyes open anymore. I slept about 6 hours yesterday (at home, in my bed), and then went back to work last night again. Nodded off a few times (not when plowing, thank you), and then slept about 2 hours this morning.

I would have stayed in bed a little longer today, but I had things I needed to get done (day after Christmas bargain hunting, if you are wondering what I needed to do). The snow is now cleaned up, so we won�t have to go back in tonight unless there is any refreezing (not likely).

The next winter weather in our forecast?

New Years Eve.

Naturally���


We ended up receiving around 6 inches of the fluffy white stuff. I read where some areas of the east coast had up to 2 feet of snow, so I�m not complaining about what we had to deal with here.

The winds never picked up much so drifting wasn�t a problem. Last night was mainly about scraping down the crossroads and turn lanes, and treating any spots that hadn�t thawed during the day shift.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:

On Christmas Eve, MY PLOW TRUCK CAUGHT ON FIRE!

That doesn�t happen every day, now does it?

I had just started my shift, and was plowing in tandem with an hourly, trying to open up the driving lane north of town. Everything was running fine, the snow was curling off of my blade and falling into the driving lane, where the hourly caught it and sent it to the shoulder.

I was listening to sports talk radio. All of the conversations seem to go just like this:

Host: �Go ahead, caller!�

Caller #1 :�Yeah, I think the Bears should fire the head coach!�

Host :�Great idea, caller #1. On line two, we have Bill from the �burbs. Go ahead Bill!�

Caller #2: �Yeah, I think that last guy is an asshole! We should fire the whole team!�

Host :�Great idea, Bill� (repeat a few hundred times, and toss in a few commercials for "gentleman�s clubs" and weight loss formulas, and you have a radio station�.

Suddenly, my radio became filled with static. All of the lights on my dash flickered on and off. Lights I have never seen before lit up in pretty shades of blue, red, green, and yellow. My engine sputtered, and then died. Along with the engine, everything else stopped and went black. I had enough momentum to roll to the inside shoulder, and when the vehicle stopped I climbed out to see what had happened to cause the breakdown.

When I opened the door, I noticed smoke pouring up from the area under my seat. I hopped out into the snow, and looked under the cab. Orange sparks were flickering out from the battery box area, filling the air with acrid smoke. I went around to the other side of the cab, and I opened the passenger door. I couldn�t find my fire extinguisher (I later found that somebody had buried it under the drivers seat).

I ran back to the driver�s side, and did the only thing I could think of: I started throwing handfuls of snow on the flames. It took a minute or so, but the flames finally went out.

By this time, my hourly had caught up with me, and had pulled behind my (totally dark) truck to block traffic. I called the yard (using his two-way radio), and they told me a tow truck would come to me as soon as they could.

Fine. At least I was inside another truck, and not freezing in my dead vehicle.

Things went downhill quickly from that point: Beavis pulled up in his station wagon. He told me to send my hourly on to continue plowing, and HAD ME SIT IN HIS CAR WITH HIM, WHERE WE WAITED FOR THE TOW TRUCK FOR 2 HOURS!

Beavis is not the master of small talk, so time stood still. When the tow truck showed up, I hopped out and did all I could to help him speed things up.

We had to drop the plow to tow my truck. Problem was, the spot where you hook the jack to remove the blow was blocked (due to the blade being rotated to the right). The tow truck driver had to drag me backwards until I could get the plow rotated. Once that happened, it was only a few minutes before he had my truck hooked and was headed to the storage. I had to wait until Rabbit came out from the yard with another truck, so we could hook the plow to it and take it back, too.

All told, I was out of commission for about 3 hours. I ended up going out to Rabbit�s route, because he was working on broken-down trucks in the yard and nobody else was plowing for him.

Long night, I�m telling you�.


The total cost of the damage to my truck?

The wire that was smokin� was the main �positive� cable from the batteries to the engine. It was replaced in about thirty minutes after Joe D. Mechanic started working on it Wednesday morning. Might have cost the state $20 for the cable. The tow will be over $150, thought.

This cable had been rubbing on the truck�s frame for the entire 3 years of its life, and had finally become raw enough to �arc� to the frame, causing the fire. Joe D. told me this morning that if I hadn�t put the flames out as quickly as I did, the fire would have caught the main hydraulic line on fire. If that had happened, the truck would have been engulfed in flames, and likely totaled.

I was just lucky, that�s all��


Speaking of �engulfed in flames�:

We had another truck catch on fire around the same time as mine. It didn�t turn out as well as mine did, though.

It was my old mainline truck, now an hourly truck. The driver was one of the new snowbirds, and he was about 2 hours into his very first shift when flames started rolling up from under his hood. By the time he got the truck stopped on the shoulder, the entire engine was (say it one more time) engulfed in flames. Tire exploded, all of the fiberglass melted, and the paint was completely burned off for the cab.

Yeah, it�s totaled. It was a 1991 model: old, but nowhere near our oldest truck.

It won�t be replaced with the money shortage problems we are now facing.

Last night, when my crew was milling about, waiting to start our shift, I noticed that the driver of the crispy-fried truck was standing in a group of guys, telling them all about his adventure.

I went into the toolroom, and when I came out I handed him a 10 lb. fire extinguisher. I told him he had to carry it wherever he went last night, even into the bathroom. �You can�t be to safe�, I told him.

He joined in with the guys around him, laughing at my sad attempt at humor.

Hey, I figured he needed some humor (even a poor stab at it), after what he had been through�..


In case you are wondering- no, our trucks don't catch on fire all of the time.

These two truck fires were only the second and third times that anyone can remember this happening at our storage in the last 25 years! The only other truck fire anyone could remember happened before I started working for the state, 20+ years ago. That truck also was ruined. The guy who was driving it didn't even have time to get his coat and thermos out of the cab, and filed a claim against the NDDOT to have them replaced.

Nobody could remember if he ever got his money......

Antique - Futuristic


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