STREET DEPARTMENT GEARS UP FOR ANY SCENARIO

Street Department personnel are ready for the first snow or ice of winter. From left were Lyman King, Mike Dougan, Dennis Hurst, Brian McClanahan and Steve Hendrix. Jackson USA Signal/Mark Evans

Part of the city of Jackson's winter weather fleet waited in front of its cinder pile. The dump truck is equipped with an 11-foot blade, the pick-up with an eight-foot blade. The other truck has been equipped as a cinder-loader. Jackson USA Signal/Mark Evans

School kids, eager to have a day off from school and travelers, concerned about flight schedules and travel plans, are not the only ones closely monitoring winter weather locally.

Steve Hendrix, Jackson Street Department supervisor for the past 15 years, is also intently tracking weather patterns and forecasts.

"I'm a weather-watcher," he said. "My job is to have everything ready. It's a guessing game we have to play with the weather."

When winter weather hits, Hendrix and his crew have to be prepared.

"I have three sources," he said, "the National Weather Service, radar and the airport. My job is to make sure our equipment is ready to be called out as soon as it's needed."

If three inches of snow or more hit the ground, the department is out, en force, doing whatever is needed to make city streets driveable.

"A question we get a lot is how do we decide what streets to clean first," said Jim Roach, Public Works director. "We have three levels of priority. We have thoroughfares, or artillery streets; secondary, or collateral streets; and local streets."

"We clear the major thoroughfares first, to leave them open for emergency equipment and to keep traffic flowing so everyone can get onto the highway," Hendrix said. "Once we do the major thoroughfares, we go to the secondary streets -- the main streets into most subdivisions.

"If a thoroughfare isn't open you can't go anywhere anyway."

"People think they ought to be able to get out of their driveway first, then go on to the highway," Roach said. "It doesn't work like that."

Another frequent complaint is that snow plows push snow back onto shoveled driveways.

"When you plow snow, you're gonna pile snow ups somewhere," Roach said. "We try not to (seal off driveways) People are responsible for opening their own drives."

"We do the best we can," Hendrix said. "We're a city government and we can't please everybody all the time."

"Overall the citizens are pretty patient and understanding," Roach said. "They make do."

The city is ready for any winter weather that may strike in 2000. Equipment -- three cinder trucks, three snow plows, two back hoes, two front-end loaders and one grader -- is ready by late fall, with spare blades and other spare parts on hand.

Jackson is unique in that the city uses no salt or sodium-based solutions to fight slick streets. Instead, a mixture of coal cinders and chat is used. The cinders, spent coal, picked up free from Southeast Missouri State University, is a cheaper, healthier alternative to salt solutions. It is also just as effective.

"When it warms up it draws heat and execrates melting," Hendrix explained. "It is also a somewhat granular material and gives some traction, along with the chat."

Aside from being free, the cinders do not corrode the city equipment or streets.

"It's also better on our sewer system," Roach said. "Steel pipes corrode. It's also better on the surface of the street. Salt tends to 'pit' concrete. It's not as corrosive on people's vehicles, either. We're kind of unique. We look at it as recycling. We're taking a waste product and reusing it. We're not impacting the environment as bad. Salt gets into the creeks and streams."

"We probably retrieve about half of what we put down," Hendrix said. "It's then used on gravel roads and parking areas We're actually using recycled material twice. This saving the city a little money and getting a good product.

Jackson's weather-fighting equipment doubles as standard gear the rest of the year. It is up to Hendrix to make the call when to attach snow plow blades to the dump trucks and the cinder loader to its truck.

"Once I put a unit on a truck, it's out of (regular) service until I remove it," he said. "It makes my job a little more fun and challenging to guess the weather and not get caught in the middle of the night with nothing ready. It takes two men about an hour to prepare a truck. We have been caught before by freak things coming up.

"We have a cinder truck ready for operation. Two trucks have framing (to hold blades) in place. We just need to snap on plows, which should take 15-20 minutes."

Maintenance Department Supervisor Kurt Anderson and his three-man staff are instrumental in keeping the equipment ready for emergency use -- and for maintaining them during any winter emergencies.

Heavy winter storms are taxing situations for the city workers. While weather has been mild in recent years, storms like the one in 1979 are not forgotten. When the weather turns ugly, the city workers are fighting full-fledged war.

"It usually takes 36-to-40 hours to get over whole town," Hendrix said. " used to have 34-to-36 hour shifts. It's important to do it and do an effective job. We use 18-hours shifts now. A few hours rest, a shower, change of clothes and a hot meal will do wonders for someone. You can work someone too long and defeat your purpose. Our main concern is safety for the citizens and safety of the workers.

"It's a 24-hour, seven-day operation., till we get the streets passable, including the neighborhood streets," Roach said.. "We try to stagger it and let them get some sleep and the vehicles some maintenance."

"A stand-by person is on duty everyday. If I determine I need to put my people on call, they'll be ready for me to call hem in at anytime," Hendrix said. "They understand that and are real good about coming in when they're needed."

"Steve does a good job with the department," Roach said. "We don't have an overabundance of men or women. He makes the most of what we have. It would be nice to have more, but if we had 10 more, the rest of the year they'd be standing around."

The Street Department has eight people including Hendrix. However, he is capable of using four from the Water Department, two or three from power plant and two from the Waste Water Plant on a rotating basis.

"I try not to use those people during their working hours," he said. "Sometimes we have power outages, water mains breaking or other emergencies. Having the power on, so people can have heat in their homes, is more important that people going someplace.

"I've had offers to help in emergencies form off-duty fireman and policemen. We have a lot of resources for getting help. Several local contractors have also said -- if we have a breakdown -- we can use their equipment. It helps out a whole lot. People live here all their lives and their kids live here and they have some pride in their town."

"There's still enough of a small-town atmosphere here that you find that," Roach said.

When bad weather or other emergencies strike Jackson, the city has an experienced, diverse group of workers to call upon. Many have been with the city for years, working in more than one department.

"One of our strong points in the city is that so many people are cross-trained," Roach said. "Many of them have worked in different departments and are able to call on that past experience. It's a real benefit. We still encourage that. If a guy gets burned out on his current job, we try to give him the opportunity to transfer to another department. That's really invaluable."

"They advance on up the scale, to more demanding, better-paying jobs," Hendrix added. "They get attached to the city over the years. Their pride in the city increases."

These intangibles give Jackson something that pay scales and benefit packages can't -- loyal workers.

"I wouldn't have been here the last 24 years if I didn't enjoy it," Hendrix said.