County Highway Department looks back on a memorable month
January 2024 will be long remembered by Hamilton County residents for its extreme winter weather.
With subzero temperatures, two major snow storms in the space of a week and the introduction of something called a snow squall causing whiteout conditions a week after the second storm, it was a month to remember. Schools used several of their snow days during that period and businesses had interruptions in their schedules, but one group perhaps impacted most was members of the Hamilton County Highway Department.
With 1,000 miles of county roads to maintain and keep passable, county highway crews put in countless hours over a three-week period in an effort to keep traffic moving and ensure emergency, mail and school bus routes were kept open.
Storm timeline
With snow still on the ground from before Christmas, just over a week into the new year snow began to fall on the afternoon of Monday, Jan. 8, leaving behind several inches of the white stuff for county and state crews to plow off the roads. They were still working on cleaning that up when a second storm hit on Thursday of that week, this time accompanied by strong northwest winds pushing along subzero arctic air, making for deadly wind chills. That triggered a marathon three-day weekend of clearing and re-clearing roads as the winds continued to blow for several days after the snow stopped falling. By Monday afternoon, two motor graders were still working to open up a two mile stretch of County Road 12 just west of Aurora, even as roads that had already been cleared were drifting shut again.
Then just seven days after Storm No. 2 hit, the National Weather Service in Omaha issued its first-ever snow squall warning for eastern Nebraska. The fast moving storm, described as being the winter version of a summer thunderstorm, passed through the area in about a two hour period Thursday afternoon, leaving behind more snow and a trail of wreckage from numerous multi-car crashes across the region caused by the sudden whiteout conditions resulting from the snow and high winds. The winds continued to blow overnight and into Friday closing roads once again due to drifting snow.
A world of white
For county highway department crew member Dylan Christenson, that Jan. 8 storm was the beginning of an 18-day stretch of 8-12 hour days without a day off. Christensen, who has been with the department for a total of four years, is responsible for operating a motor grader on about 100 miles of county roads northwest of Aurora and says the ordeal was both physically and mentally draining.
“I was just tired of looking out the windshield and looking at snow,” Christenson said, adding that after so many days in a row of staring at the world of white he needed a mental break more than anything.
“It’s a lot of looking at the same thing and the way our v-plows are shaped if you hit a big drift all the snow likes to blow off to the side but also blow over the top and hit the window,” Christenson said. “Then you can’t see in front of you anymore. So some guys kind of look out the side and try to judge how far away from the power poles you are to make sure you’re staying straight or hold the steering wheel straight and see what it’s like on the other side. You’ve gotta hit it with some speed to make sure that you can get through, but the snow starts flying up especially on a windy day. It flies off the plow and flies up off the blade and you’re putting a little blizzard around the machine trying to get the snow off, so it can be pretty difficult to see where you’re going a lot of times.”
With the constant winds moving the snow around, highway workers said it often felt like they were fighting a losing battle.
“There was a couple of times I went out and I’d go and get it opened up and drive back by that road a few hours later and everything was blown shut,” Christenson said. “You couldn’t even tell that we had been there so we’d go back down again and open it back up.”
He said the visibility problem is why crews only worked from dawn to dusk. Even with powerful work lights, the snow is especially disorienting at night.
Since he lives in his service area, Christenson took his grader with its v-plow home every night during the worst of the cold so it was ready to go the next morning and he didn’t have to worry about driving to the shop to get it. Not having a shed to park it in, however, he says the decision was made to leave it running all night for several nights during the worst of the cold. This was the case with several machines where there weren’t sheds to park them in.
“So they were afraid if we shut them off overnight, the machine might gel up and then I couldn’t get it started in the morning,” Christenson said.. “And so they just had us run them overnight. Once the machine’s warm it won’t gel up.”
Highway Supt. Jeremy Brandt said if the diesel in a machine did gel in the extreme cold, it would have taken half a day to get it going again so he decided it was more cost effective to let them run.
Christensen said when plowing snow, his grader typically uses over 100 gallons of diesel per day and there were days during that time that he had to fuel up twice a day.
Co-worker Beau Johnson has been with the department about five months and typically works with the dirt crew repairing roads and bridges. He worked without a break from Tuesday, Jan., 9 through the 24th. He says, not having a regular route, he pitched in where needed to help get and keep the roads open.
He said during that period his wife, Ashley, had to take days off from her job to take care of their two children (ages 7 and 3) while he worked.
Johnson says the day of the squall was especially memorable for him.
“I was headed to a certain spot on 14th Road to hurry up and clean up real quick, but when that squall came in, I couldn’t see even a foot a past my windshield,” Johnson said. “I knew I had hit something on the side so I just pretty much put my v-plow down and my motor blade down and just stayed right there so if anything came at me I was going to stop them, too. So I just sat there until I could see sunlight over the top of those drifts.”
He said the drifts at that spot were as high as the motor grader.
Johnson said the whole ordeal was exhausting for both he and Ashley.
“After the 12-hour shift you’d go home, have a little bit of dinner, try to see the kiddos before they go to bed, then go to sleep,” he said. “Then you do it all over again. Mentally, it can get to you, but a lot of times it was just tiring... just staring out the window 12 hours a day from daylight and dark.”
Brandt and his assistant superintendent, B.J. Frauendorfer, stayed busy through that time as well. Frauendorfer said the leaders helped out where crews were short-handed by running a snow plow and maintainer, delivering fuel, helping with tire chains and changing filters which can easily get clogged with fine snow when it’s blowing around.
Frauendorfer worked 10 days in a row during one stretch and said he understands the mental and physical stress on the snow plow operators.
“It gets old in about 10 minutes,” he said. “There are some guys that like it but they’re a different breed.”
He said those who have been with the department for a number of years say the last time they saw snow like this was the winter of 2009-2010 when there was also an ice storm.