The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
PRELUDE TO WINTER
Amherst Garage’s annual event readies fleet for sleet
Ohio Turnpike crews are readying the fleet for sleet, and snow and ice and cold temperatures that come with winter in Ohio.
Turnpike inspectors gathered Oct. 17 at the Ohio Turnpike’s Amherst Maintenance Building, 7800 Oberlin Road, for an afternoon of preseason checks.
Running down the 136-point inspection list has become a rite of fall at the stations along the 241-mile tollway across northern Ohio.
“Turnpike customers expect a premium road to travel during the winter and our goal is to exceed expectations,” said Chris
“It’s up in the air. We just expect the worst and go from there.”
— Greg Brown, foreman at the Amherst station, on predictions for the upcoming winter weather
Matta, deputy chief engineer for the Ohio Turnpike.
The turnpike has 1,395 lane miles, 31 interchanges and 14 service plazas. There are 15 salt storage depots, and crews use an average of 65,000 tons of salt and 83,500 gallons of liquid chemicals a year, according to OTP data.
During snowfall, the Amherst station will use two crews of 11 staffers to drive the plows, alternating on 12-hour shifts to clear the roadway. The crew is responsible for clearing six interchanges
The local garage has 14 trucks, including three 2018 trucks added to the fleet in the middle of last winter, said Matta and Greg Brown, foreman at the Amherst station.
The Lorain County-area drivers usually are assigned to an area, but will move as needed to clear snow.
All but two of the Amherst trucks carry wing plows, which extend from the side of the truck to clear the lane next to the truck as the plow on the front pushes snow away.
The Amherst garage has a tow plow, a 35,000-pound trailer that rolls directly behind a plow truck, but that can swing out past the
passenger side of the truck to clear more lane area.
The Amherst Maintenance Building has about 6,500 tons of salt stockpiled to begin the winter.
The trucks carry sidemounted tanks with salted liquid that is sprayed with the rock salt. The liquid helps the salt melt ice more quickly and it slows down the refreezing.
Some of the trucks carry larger tanks with anti-icing liquid to pre-treat roadways; turnpike workers also target bridge decks at this time of year because those tend to freeze before solid asphalt, Matta said.
Despite the size of the implements, it can take as little as 15 minutes to remove the bed-mounted liquid tanks and add stainless steel dump beds to carry salt, Matta and Brown said.
The 2017-2018 winter season had 132 storms overall.
The season was spotty for the Amherst plow drivers, Matta and Brown said. In times of mild conditions, weather was manageable, but the storms that covered Lorain County “kicked our teeth in,” Brown said.
“It was intense at certain points,” Matta said.
Brown hesitated to hazard a guess on the upcoming winter’s forecast.
“I’m seeing it all over the place,” Brown said. He noted some predictions say winter will be mild, some say colder than ever.
“It’s up in the air,” Brown said. “We just expect the worst and go from there.”
Incidentally, the trucks do not get a summer vacation.
The dump trucks that carry the plows in winter are the same ones that crews use to haul supplies and pull trailers for road repairs when the weather is warm.