After being briefed and given a strategic plan of streets to attack, Geri Marsala climbed behind the steering wheel of a 10-ton snowplow and maneuvered the state-of-the-art truck with surprising agility.
A two-way radio kept her connected to snow command headquarters, where her supervisors in Hoffman Estates were tracking weather conditions through satellite updates beamed onto a computer screen.
In a week that saw major snow and bitter cold in the Chicago area, this typical winter workday for Marsala represents how far modern snowplowing has come. Not too long ago, visions of such winter warriors were more along the lines of unguided grizzled men barreling down the roadways through blinding storms. Even the fact that Marsala is a woman points to the notion that times are a-changing in this age-old community service.
Snowplowing has become a high-tech modern system; a science, practically. In fact, scientists have been called on to research such minutiae as what angle the plow should hit the ground and the future prospect of liquid salt.
As well, throughout the Chicago area, communities are linking up to sophisticated radar weather computers instead of relying on the 10 o’clock nightly news for storm updates.
In Chicago, for example, planning for a winter season begins when the last snow falls in the previous season. At that point, the city takes stock of how much salt it has and prepares to buy more, usually around 300,000 tons.
A year-round snow command center is manned by workers who monitor a Doppler radar system, a more sophisticated radar that shows the layering of the atmosphere, the storm’s intensity and snow that hasn’t hit the ground yet.
Chicago also contracts with a private weather-forecasting system that alerts supervisors to weather conditions by pager. With these types of predictions, snowplowers may be called in hours before the first snowflake hits the ground.
“We’ll take input from everywhere. Every little bit that exists we try to get our hands on it and make determinations,” said Terry Levin, spokesman for the city Department of Streets and Sanitation.
Within the past decade, city officials implanted nine road sensors the size of hockey pucks throughout the city on roads that typically freeze first, like Lake Shore Drive, which is open to all of Mother Nature’s elements.
The sensors monitor the road pavement, relaying to computers its temperature and whether it’s wet, dry or ice-covered, or if the wetness is from a chemical such as road salt, Levin said.
“The snow we got (last) Wednesday and the cold arctic weather we got Thursday were all predicted days in advance,” Levin said. “There was no element of surprise.
“Back in the old days, we didn’t even have heaters or radios in the snowplows, so there was no way for the city to keep track of the plows on the street unless the drivers found pay phones and called in.”
In Naperville, where there are more than 900 cul-de-sacs, which are difficult to plow, city officials team up with private contractors to get the streets cleaned, said David Barber, director of public works. During last week’s storm, Naperville had more than 90 pieces of equipment on the streets for several hours.
It has just ordered a zero velocity spreader, which adjusts the distribution of the salt based on the speed of the truck so salt lands on the street and not the curbside.
Even nearer the cutting edge is the city’s decision to use expensive anti-icing chemicals on the downtown sidewalks, the same chemical airlines use on airplanes in freezing weather.
“We’re probably one of the few communities that are using this,” Barber said. “It prevents ice accumulation and is less destructive to plant life.”
The combination of calcium magnesium acetate and potassium magnesium acetate is about 10 times as expensive as the road salt that is used in de-icing streets, Barber said. But it is non-corrosive and used only in small amounts. The city will consider using it on the downtown streets in the future, Barber said.
David Kuemmel, a professor in the civil and environmental engineering department at Marquette University, Milwaukee, said the anti-icing chemical and technique stems from the newest research in highway maintenance. A lot of the interest in snow removal stems from the federal Strategic Highway Research Program initiated a decade ago, Kuemmel said.
“The research money spent on winter maintenance did a lot of things and got this whole country geared up to change the way it does winter maintenance,” Kuemmel said. “All the states are on top of it and are all changing. The states will lead the big cities and the big cities will lead the little cities.”
Hoffman Estates, where Marsala works, has been linked up by computer to the National Weather Service for the past year. They also have added to their snowplow fleet some trucks with automated computer-controlled spreading devices that calculate the amount of salt spread onto the street so it’s not wasted.
In a 1994 village survey, the residents of Hoffman Estates voted snow removal as the best village service, above the fire and police service, said Kenneth Gomoll, superintendent of streets.
Schaumburg has a 35-page policy on snow removal that guides snowplowers through 112 center lane miles of street and 650 cul-de-sacs, said Robert Miller, director of public works. Snow removal costs about $750,000 a year.
“Older towns have a grid system. But Schaumburg has curved linear streets and a lot of T-intersections and 650 cul-de-sacs,” Miller said. “We have more specialized equipment because of that.”
In McHenry County, highway supervisor Mike Magnuson said, “We get more attention for our big construction projects, but snow removal probably has the most effect.” Magnuson’s team begins in August to prepare for the upcoming winter season by buying salt, preparing trucks and reviewing snow plans.
Part of that plan includes a bold promise to have “bare pavement three hours after the snow stops falling,” Magnuson said.
No matter how technical or typical the job appears, snowplowing is on the minds of a lot of residents. On any given route, residents will either shake their fists as plows dump snow on their newly shoveled driveways or bring out a mug of hot chocolate to say thanks for clearing the road, Marsala said.
“See, you get a lot of this,” Marsala said, pointing to a man shoveling snow back into the street from his driveway. “You try to clean the street off and they throw it back on. What do you want us to do with the snow?”
