Continuous Snow Taking Toll In Many Ways
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- We're expecting more snow tonight.
Not a lot, but enough to bring the road crews out again.
These nuisance snows are starting to take their toll -- not only physically, but financially.
In unrelenting waves, the parade of clippers keep marching through our area and road crews can't afford to let up.
"It's like you are constantly out there, it never stops," Chuck Craig of Liberty Borough said.
No sooner is the load of salt depleted, it's time to refill and go again day after day after day.
"I lost count, I quit counting," Gary Galivas of Whitaker said. "It just goes on and on, yeah."
"I worked through the last two weekends straight and you're tired and you don't know what day it is," Craig said. "I want a day off."
Twelve hours on, 12 hours off -- the biggest enemy is when the storm hits at rush hour.
"Once we have all that traffic on the road it makes it that much harder to treat," PennDOT District 11 Maintenance Manager Angelo Pampena said.
And traffic doesn't generally cut the drivers a break.
"It's safer just to stay behind the trucks and heed warning to the lights," Pampena said.
Inevitably when the snow flies, frustrated drivers start complaining about not seeing any salt trucks.
"I think we're easy prey, not seeing us does not mean we are not there," PennDOT foreman Mike Lonergan said. "It's not worth getting upset or angry, just makes you want to be seen more then."
So far, the salt supplies are being easily replenished and holding steady as crews await what has become the certainty of the next storm.
"It looks like it's going to be a nice weekend, I can't wait for the weekend just to have two days off," Lonergan said.
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