“Three inches at rush hour is a major impact.”
A challenging snowfall rate, but as Jerry Byrne, Deputy managing Director of Operations for the Kent County Road Commission explains, blizzard conditions present another set of problems including its timing.
“This one coming over the holiday, you know, you don’t have the business travel, you don’t have the commuter travel, you have the holiday travel. So, impactful probably in less people but more severe.”
Byrne says the road commission has been bolstering supplies.
“We went through two significant winter events already over 12-inches of snow. Two events. So, it’s restocking sand and salt. It’s making the final repairs on any equipment that might have broken during the past few storms.”
The game planning began early in the week with staff kept in the loop.
“They typically would have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday off because of the holidays. We’re telling them plan on working Thursday night, Friday. We’re scheduling for that and we’re telling them to plan on working through the entire weekend. It’s getting the employees prepared to work what would be a four-day weekend and holiday and probably work right straight through.”
Nearly 100 Kent County plow drivers will spend the holiday weekend clearing snow.