Get ready,get set …

This state’s highway department gets on its mark

IT TOOK the ol’ boy from Louisiana a couple of weeks to get used to Arkansas parking lots. Yes, parking lots. If you’re used to flat land—and it doesn’t get much flatter than parts of Louisiana—then the parking lots in these latitudes can be tricky. Because some of the parking spaces are on an incline. The ol’ boy found his car door slamming back on him if he parked one way, or jerking away from him if he parked another.

And that was in the summer. His first winter here was a circus. How do you get to work if you have to drive up and down hills the entire way— and the roads are covered in ice?

The answer that most Arkies would give him: Very carefully.

If the calendar is right, winter approaches Arkansas yet again. The price we all pay for looking out over a winter wonderland a few mornings of the year, and being able to build snowmen with the kids, and getting an unexpected break from school and maybe even work, is chancy travel. For a recent example, see last winter.

An unexpected ice storm hit the state one Friday evening last February and shut down the whole state. Folks were stranded on the interstate between Little Rock and Memphis for days. Shameful. Their predicament made national news, and it didn’t make Arkansas look good.

Where were the snow plows? Where was the highway department? Where were the trucks and salt and workers and the help in general? The governor wasn’t happy. Neither, one would expect, were the poor folks stuck on I-40.

The good news: This year, the state’s highway department says it’s ready. Or at least getting ready.

Granted, nothing’s going to keep traffic moving smoothly if the state gets 10 feet of snow one night. But the honchos at the highway department say they’re planning to hire 200 more people for their maintenance crews as winter closes in—and the hires should be made as soon as the paperwork and drug tests clear. At the beginning of 2014, the state— the entire state of Arkansas—had only six trucks with belly plows, and four of them were stationed in Northwest Arkansas. The plan is to double that number soonest, and park four of the trucks in Central Arkansas, where they can be farmed out to different parts of the state as needed.

And the state has bought salt. Lots and lots of salt. As in 12,000 tons of it.

Yes, all of this is costing millions. Or as officials told the newspaper, about $18 million more this year.

But anybody who was stuck on I-40 overnight last February and had to rely on local church people to come out and feed the stranded might think another $18 million for people and equipment will be worth it if The Big One hits. Or just another Medium One.

For the record, the people who run the Farmers’ Almanac are calling for a wet, cold winter. And—this is the clincher—we’ve seen spoons in persimmon seeds. Now would be a good time to get that snow shovel out of the shed, y’all.

On your marks, get set . . . .