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Wednesday, Jan. 02, 2008 - 8:57 p.m.
This photo was from the last daytime snow storm I worked. My cameras don't work too well at night, so this is the most recent shot I have for you. That said.... I just finished a 2 day period at work where I put in 13.5 hours one night (New Years Eve) and 15 hours (New Years Day) fighting a minor snow with major winds. Yeah, I'm burned out. Also about 6 hours behind, sleep wise. Working nights does that to me. One of the most heard sayings here at the DOT is that no two snows are the same. After 26 winters of doing this, I can attest to that. This one dropped 1" to 2" of snow over the northern most 3 miles of my route, but somehow managed to leave nothing behind on ANY OTHER ROUTE in our county. The snow has to start somewhere, right? Well, it decided to start on my route. Because of that, I had the only route with problems (much blowing and drifting, plus ice on the pavement where the snow blew on top of rain-soaked surfaces). I ended up having 3 extra trucks helping my New Years Eve, but still had problems. New Years Day? Everyone had some snow. but since I had 1" to 2 " more than everyone else, I had more problems on my route than the rest. All said and done, I drove for 25 or so of those 28+ hours, with about 6 hours of sleep between shifts. Oh yeah- I really don't enjoy cold weather anymore, and the low last night was -2�F. I had a frozen block of salt in the bed of my plow truck that had to be busted out at 3 am (so I could reload with dry salt to treat the roads before I went home this morning). The tip sections on the first three fingers on my left hand became white after breaking the salt free ( from lack of blood?), and were numb for about 30 minutes after I started driving again. Still... after 26 winters, I still enjoy seeing what happens each snow, and feel good about getting the roads open and safe for all the crazy drivers I see out there each and every day (and night). Oh yeah- one more thing...I had a south bound car driving in the north bound lanes in the high banked curve at the north end my route New Years Eve. Traffic moved aside for the driver, who then turned onto the side road into the small town at the north end of my route (where I was waiting for traffic to clear to re-enter my route from a side road) and then stopped in the middle of the road to continue talking on her cell phone, oblivious to the fact she just drove the wrong way on a divided 4-lane highway. This was at 12:30 am on New Years Day. This was also a sign for me to take a break to let the amateur drunk drivers try to make it home without killing anyone. I have worked 4 or 5 New Year's Eves before, and have seen this type of behavior each and every time. Since she was headed into the small town,l I knew there were two police cars patrolling there all night. I doubt she made it very far before one of them pulled her over....
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