Wittenberg township gears up for winter snowplowing

Beversdorf: ‘No slack times driving a plow’
By: 
David Wilhelms
Correspondent

There’s always something to be done or fixed when it comes to plowing snow in the Town of Wittenberg.

Dick Beversdorf, town chairman, said town employees Keith Dorn and Rick Hartleben needed to order some spare blades from the county highway department Nov. 13 when the three discussed the upcoming season.

The town has two snowplow trucks and a front-end loader to take on its 79-80 “lane miles” of roads. That’s double the township’s 39-40 miles of roads because, as they reminded each other, you have to plow both lanes. Dorn handles the front-end loader, and Hartleben drives a truck.

The town doesn’t coordinate with the county on plowing schedules, Hartleben said.

Beversdorf said the roads are usually cleared in six to seven hours, well within the state law requirement of 72 hours.

Mailboxes are an eternal hazard as the drivers try to keep them upright all winter.

Wet, heavy snow piling up ahead of the blades is one concern in taking out a mailbox. The other is speed.

“If you slow down, you don’t have the problems,” Hartleben said.

Driving a plow is not as easy as it looks, Hartleben said.

Beversdorf added residents should step into the shoes of the plow drivers.

In particular, Beversdorf said a problem is the “rumble strips” of packed snow created when residents violate state law by pushing snow from their properties across a road into the opposite ditch.

The “strips” can catch and throw off a plow, he said. The “rumble strips” can also be a hazard for citizens using the roads, he added.

Dorn and Hartleben have assigned territories, and “you need to get to know it by habit,” Hartleben said. In fact, the drivers know their territories more by the challenges than by street names.

The two drivers discussed their most memorable hazards — including what Hartleben called “that big rock on the end of Birch Road,” after they agreed that it was, in fact, Birch Road.

“You have to be careful,” he said. “You can get some pretty wicked jolts, and it’s hard on the equipment.”

“Dead ends are the worst,” Dorn added. “You have to remember where the ditch is or you can go in.”

Beversdorf, who has some experience plowing parking lots, agreed.

“There are no slack times driving a plow,” he said. “There’s always the unexpected.”