Page 7 - Mar-Apr24 Vol 41 No 7

6 p.m.: During a followup meeting A term I have used a lot is certain mem- people just want out of their homes.
with our team, I remember looking at the bers of our staff were rocks. They were I remember Thursday morning, with no
weather radar on my phone, looking at solid, dependable, efficient, trustworthy, end in sight, my incoming emails out-
one of our long-term managers and saying and every other word you could think of. paced my responses. As is the case during
“When this is all said and done, I don’t Day in and day out through the entire a lot of emergencies, armchair quarter-
think I will have seen a storm like this in week, guys would go home to rest, and be backs come out from all areas. Please
my 15 years.” right back at the shop doing it all again! salt my street! I have not even seen a salt
Tuesday the 16th: A storm predicted to I could not be prouder of how our staff truck! I bet the other side of town doesn’t
be 2-5” finally quit about 32 hours after it persevered through the entire week. look like this!
started, leaving Knoxville with 9” of snow Thursday the 18th: Those that know, The list went on and on. One customer
and noontime temperature of a not-so- understand that regardless of the resourc- left me a message and said that we were
balmy 19 degrees. But that is where things es you have, at this point we were swim- the dumbest box of rocks that he had
really got interesting. ming upstream. By Thursday night, we hit ever seen. Another left me a message
Our team worked really hard on the the third straight evening with single digit stating they worked in healthcare and if
streets in our plan, but getting our level I temperatures and 9+ inches of snow. someone’s grandmother dies today, that
and II streets “passable” at those tempera- At this point, saying the backroad is on me!
tures were the best we could accomplish streets had become solid ice was probably And one of my favorites was a custom-
by day’s end. an understatement. Plows were unable to er who was mad because we plowed his
Wednesday the 17th: At about 7 a.m., penetrate the thick layer of ice and would street, but all the snow was sent onto his
as I was out assessing things, my phone skim up to the top layer, making them perfectly-shoveled driveway and he want-
showed me a temperature of -3 degrees. almost completely ineffective. ed us to come back and clear it. What are
I remember people even laughing at that And salt lost efficiency as temperatures you supposed to say to that?
and saying “that is not even a real tem- dropped further and further below freez- But as I said before, we have salt and we
perature.” The temperature was not only ing. At 18 degrees, salt loses about 80% of have a plan. While it was hard for every-
real, it was devastating. its efficiency! one to understand, the goal of a snow plan
I have said for years, give me a 10” Despite all of this, the main roads is to keep the hospital routes, main streets,
snowstorm at 25-30 degrees any day over through Knoxville were passable and the state highways, and the secondary
a 2” storm at 10 degrees. Never has that things were progressing. For the first time roads that feed into those streets passable.
statement been truer with this storm. -3 we were able to turn our attention to the Only after we successfully handle
climbed to 24, then back down to 5 de- neighborhoods and streets outside of our those streets, do we then go into level III
grees Wednesday night. snow plan. I would also add that two to streets and neighborhoods. Knoxville is
Both Tuesday and Wednesday were three days after a storm begins, is when not Buffalo, New York. Not only do we
blurs. Our team worked around the things get “special.” not have the capability to get every city
clock. But at times progress was still hard I always say that families love snow for street, it would not be fiscally responsible
to measure. Employees would leave while the first two to three days. After that, kids for taxpayers to do so.
others would report back. get louder, parents become impatient, and Continued on page 8

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