Posted by Shaun Pinney on Fri, Jan 30, 2009 @ 10:41 AM
The constant flow of winter weather through Central New England certainly tests our ability to deliver outstanding snow and ice management results for your property. There is still ice out there from the January 7th sleet and ice storm that took us many days to service. This leaves us little time to get properly prepared for the next storm. While we have back-up trucks and equipment to fill in as others need repair, it's a constant struggle to keep everything operating effectively and repaired between storms. This means we are always switching to plan B or plan C. The reality is that's what the snow business is about and dealing with the situation professionally is our responsibility.
I made the mistake of thinking that my cell phone would work in our time-share condo in Vermont but with the switch to digital service the signal was not as strong as the analog service was. I apologize for my message box being full during the week of the 18th. Now, I know to have my calls forwarded so you can get a live voice with concerns during the storm. I have a lot of time to fix that communication problem before next year's vacation.
Since every storm is different, it is challenging to plan the service for storms that don't want to behave the way the weather forecasters have predicted. Sometimes we get ready for a storm and nothing happens, other times a lot more comes than we are expecting. The rain-snow line adds an extremely challenging part to the decision making. On Wednesday the 28th, we got up at 3:00 am and nothing had happened, we checked again at 4:00 and 5:00 before we got an inch of snow and needed to get the commercial locationsgj on the route ready for the day. Freezing rain in the afternoon changed our direction, trying to leave the snow on the ground so the ice accretion would form on the snow and we could clean it up later. There was a small window that evening to get the slush up as temperatures dropped below freezing after the rain stopped. Everywhere I looked the surfaces have been icy this week.
The January 7th ice and sleet storm created similar problems, freezing quickly and being extremely heavy to shovel and get down to bare surfaces. Salt and calcium are the best tools for battling this kind of frozen slop. It is an exhausting challenge for the crews, often working all day, getting little sleep and being back at it the next day, as we try to get you the bare driveway and walkway surfaces you deserve. Then once the snow removal work is accomplished, the equipment needs cleaning and repair so we can be ready to do it again.
The weather forecast for early February is for warmer weather, a late January thaw? Once the jet stream changes the storms start going north or south of us, until the jet stream zeros in on us again, for another round of winter storms. The sun is getting higher in the sky and days are getting longer, sports casters are talking about two weeks until pitchers and catchers report, signs that spring is on the way.