Guthrie County has had its first snow, and the Guthrie County Roads Department is prepared for more.

The first snow may have melted already, but the winter season is just getting started. With the many miles of roads in the county, some may wonder how the road crews get everything cleaned up. Guthrie County Engineer Josh Sebern tells Raccoon Valley Radio how he and the road crews are prepared, and how they tackle snowstorms.

“Each snowstorm is unique. It’s something we’ve always said, because it depends on how it comes in, how it leaves, what takes place. So for general purposes, we generally run five to five. So we’re going to be heading out of here at five in the morning and coming back in at five at night, 12 hour shift. And the highways are priority. We start with plow trucks on the highway, if we get a really big event, we’ll have the graders start on the highway and trucks clean up, and then we’ll go to the gravels with the motor graders. We find that’s the priority that works the best, and we try and move the graders around and get them as quick as we cant to get people out so we can minimize snowed in time

Sebern mentions that while the 12 plows and 10 motor graders are usually enough to get the roads cleared, they sometimes have to put plows on the front loaders they have to help out as well. He adds that the roads department has recently attached plow wings to the plows and motor graders, to help get snow off the road easier.

 

Image Courtesy of Iowa DoT: Area roads are fully covered with snow throughout Guthrie County as the Blizzard continues. This is Iowa Hwy 44 between Guthrie Center and Panora.