How the City of Kent maintains roads in the winter season
By, Maria DeBone and Chad Flannery
In Northeast Ohio, the weather during the winter months can be summed up in one word: unpredictable.
“It’s Ohio, the weather is changing all the time, right?” said Brad McKay, who is the faculty manager for the city of Kent.
While we all have experienced the changing weather firsthand, having experienced Snowmageddon just a few weeks ago, many of us don’t have a clue about what goes on behind the scenes.
During that last storm, the city of Kent’s central maintenance team had to be all hands-on deck. In all, there is 27 employees in the department, and each one of them were called in to help.
“So, nine would work 16 hours, then they go home for 16 and the next nine come in for 16 hours and it was flipping around like that,” said McKay.
For independent contractors like Rick Wise, who plows Ravenna, Kent and Streetsboro, this time of year is extremely hectic. Everyone wants the snow cleared ASAP, so when the snow starts falling, the calls start coming.
“It never ends, from the start of the storm to the end of the storm I’m on my phone I’d say 98% of the time,” said Wise.
“It never ends, from the start of the storm to the end of the storm I’m on my phone I’d say 98% of the time,” said Wise.
Wise, who has been a private snow plow contractor for about 4 years, wants people to understand the difficulty of keeping the roads maintained.
“The normal person doesn’t see it,” said Wise. “They just see their lot is either plowed or not plowed, they don’t see that we’ve been up for 20 hours trying to get there.”
However, certain residents of Kent, like Stuart Moye, who has lived here for almost 15 years, understand the difficulties that surround maintaining the roads.
“The only problem you have is the side streets,” said Moye. “They do the busy streets, they do the hills, they do the turns and at some point, they get the other stuff, but they have to negotiate the high traffic areas first.”
For the city of Kent, the people who plow the roads are also the ones who fill potholes and fix water main breaks. If more than one of those things happen at once, then it becomes difficult. However, McKay embraces the intensity.
“It’s a tough battle and snow plow is one of the things we do, when it snows it’s the most important but like I said with the water break, when the water breaks, we have to drop snow plow and fix it,” said McKay.
One of the lesser known problems for both the city of Kent and the independent contractors is the rise of the price of salt. According to McKay, salt has doubled in price from last year. Even though the city stocked up, purchasing 3,000 tons of rock salt, that doesn’t may the price any less of a factor.
“That’s a decent amount of money, and when you double the price, your finance department looks at you,” McKay said.
Wise expressed his frustrations about obtaining salt. He has already used 100 tons of salt and with no end in sight, he may need to get more.
“We call for a semi load and they might say it’s this price, or they might say you’re cut off and they can’t even supply you for the next two weeks but to call back cause you might get a load,” said Wise.
The lack of salt combined with the fluctuating weather conditions allows the snow to melt and then freeze over, creating ice.
“You get some nasty spots where the water will settle and it creates a bad ice situation for the people in the municipality,” said Moye.
However, one thing the city typically does not have to worry about is the sidewalks. City council does ask them to clear some of the sidewalks on the state routes, but the residents and business owners in Kent are responsible for their own.
“That’s a courtesy, it’s the way that the ordinance is wrote, it’s the business owner’s responsibility to clear the sidewalk,” said McKay.
Sometimes, residents do not clear their sidewalks. Moye works at Kent State University Library and will often see pedestrians having a hard time during these conditions.
“As a driver having to go through the town, a lot of pedestrians try to make their way cause a lot of the plowing goes farther up and onto the sidewalk,” said Moye.
With the winter to likely continue for at least the next few weeks, Wise has one thing to ask of the residents and business owners in the area.
“Cut us some slack, watch the weather and understand that if the roads are bad and your lot isn’t plowed and the city can’t keep up, then we can’t keep up either,” said Wise.
Nevertheless, McKay understands he has a lot on his plate, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to do his job to the best of his ability.
“You know, there’s a lot of different things going on in the city of Kent, and I try to do the best I can to make sure people get from point a to point b,” said McKay.
Video Package: Maria/Written story: Chad/Interactive elements, audio clips featured image, tweets: Chad and Maria