The call came at 6 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 6. Superintendent Linda Dwight’s automated call informed parents that the Harvard Public Schools would be closed due to snow. The teenagers didn’t bother setting alarms, they knew it was coming. The adults with little kids played Rock, Paper, Scissors to see which one was on duty; others figured out how to share the bandwidth between their Zooming for work and their kids streaming for fun.
The Press prepared for the opportunity to spend a few hours in the life of the town employees tasked with making the roads safe for all the travelers who needed to get on the road. The folks at the Harvard Department of Public Works arrived at the Depot Road facility before sunrise to get trucks loaded with salt to treat ahead of the storm. That preparation is what allowed DPW Director David Smith to retrieve a Press reporter and photographer from their homes to ride along in one of the plows for a typical “day at the office” for his staff.
Storm prep started with Smith mapping out routes and assigning the right trucks and drivers for the jobs ahead. The drivers with CDLs—commercial drivers licenses allowing them to operate vehicles over 13 tons—hopped into the heavy trucks at 7 a.m. and began tossing down 250 pounds of salt per lane, per mile, along the 64 miles of Harvard roads.
Foreman of the crew Ron Gilbert stayed close to headquarters, as his hoister license allows him to operate the backhoe, which is what the department uses to load the salt trucks. In addition to the heavy trucks, a light-duty truck is dispatched to pretreat cul-de-sacs, dead ends, and parking lots, where the heavy trucks would struggle with maneuverability.
The town uses two plows to clear half the road down to pavement in one pass.(Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Why pretreat the roads?
The goal of pretreating the roads is to create a barrier between the pavement and the snow. “By putting salt on the road, it creates a brine to keep bonds from forming between the snow and the pavement because there will be a thin layer of water there,” Smith explained. Smith has sensors installed in his truck and special cameras mounted in key locations in town to give him crucial data such as temperature and moisture readings.
“Road temperature is more important than air temperature because it will tell you if precipitation will freeze when it lands,” he said. “Right now it’s at 20 degrees, nothing will really stick to the road as opposed to a storm where it’s 30 degrees and the road temperature might be the same. In that case, you have high moisture content and a road temperature in which the moisture will stick right to that road if you don’t treat it.”
Once the roads are pretreated, the crew heads back to the DPW to grab coffee, a snack, and to prepare for the plowing to come. “I put sand in the back of the truck to add weight, put the plow on, fill the gas tank, check the maintenance to make sure the vehicle is up and running,” said Debbie Cook, DPW employee. “Then we sit here waiting for an inch or two of snow to build up and head out to clear off the roads and try to keep up with it at that point.”
Hitting the road
When the Press arrived there were 12 trucks lined up and ready to roll. The plows are deployed in teams of two, which allows them to plow in tandem with a light-duty truck in front and the heavy truck behind. According to Smith, this cuts the job in half with only one pass needed to clear each lane fully.
On this day, the crew is only short one employee. Sick calls can throw all of Smith’s and Gilbert’s careful planning into disarray—especially if one of the few CDL drivers or even fewer hoisters can’t make it into work. The caravan departed the Depot lot and headed in different directions to begin the long process of plowing miles of roadway.
“I love the winter,” said Nick Kammesmaki, DPW CDL driver from behind the wheel of a heavy truck. “A lot of people hate it, but I find it soothing. It’s almost like a Zen garden when you plow. You can look back and see your progress.” Kammesmaki talked while pulling levers and pushing buttons, both plowing and releasing salt at the same time.
Spreaders that dispense from underneath the truck provide traction for the truck’s rear wheels, while also treating the road.
Newer trucks, better traction
“This truck is only a year old. And the benefit to having the salt come out the center is that it spits it out right before the rear tires,” said Kammesmaki. “
So the rear tires are always making contact with the salt; you always have traction. Versus our older trucks that have tail sanders, it comes out in the back.”
Kammesmaki’s main job for DPW is running the equipment for the department. He performs excavation work, digs drainage lines and swales, assists with paving, and operates the front-end loader, mini excavator, and the backhoe. “Since I was young, I’ve always wanted to get my equipment operator’s license,” he said. “I’m just a bigger kid with bigger toys.”
After clearing Ayer Road from Depot Road all the way to All Town Fresh, Kammesmaki and Smith (along with the Press) headed to Littleton Road, plowing toward Littleton and turning around at the Oak Hill Conservation Area to clear back to the center of town. With waves to other crew members as paths crossed, the first of the clearing was finished and the trucks went back to the DPW facility for a salt refill and a quick break to allow for more snow to accumulate.
DPW spent the rest of the day plowing; it was a full six hours after the last snowflake fell before the job was complete. Many on the crew will put in 12-15 hours by day’s end. When Smith was questioned about compensatory time off, he explained that there is no rest for the weary; it’s their job.
“They get paid overtime,” said Smith. “Depending on how the temperature is when the storm stops, if we can clean everything up and treat the roads before we leave at the end of the day, we won’t have to come back until tomorrow morning. If we have to come back tonight, chances are it’s not for snow, it’s going to be for icy roads.”
Until the next storm, that is. Last Thursday’s snow may have only dropped a couple of inches in town, but the one that rolled through on Saturday night had the salt-spreading crew reporting for duty at 7 p.m. After 18 hours, DPW finally wrapped up snow removal at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Make way for the DPW
Through it all, the DPW crew tries to ensure that even in the worst storms, residents can travel safely. However, one of their biggest challenges in keeping the roads clear is traffic. Every DPW employee interviewed stated that people driving during storms is the most dangerous part of their job.
“That’s the biggest thing, people don’t want to move for you sometimes,” said Cook.
“We see a lot of people that still try to drive the speed limit when the road conditions are bad,” said Kammesmaki. “That usually causes problems. They’ll end up in the woods or off the side of the road and a ditch.”
After witnessing a car speed past the tandem crew plowing Littleton Road, it is easy to see how such careless driving would pose an added and unnecessary risk for DPW workers.
Reporters note: When the Press asked David Smith about last weekend’s storm, he reported that two heavy trucks broke down during cleanup. One truck suffered a major electrical failure while the other had a hydraulic pump problem. Smith said the repairs would likely take more than a week, leaving the department short on equipment for the storm forecasted for Thursday, Feb. 13.
