By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Ahead of the first snowfall of the year, the Missouri Department of Transportation is beginning to get ready for snow plowing season.
District Engineer Marty Liles says the winter weather drill conducted today was the first drill of the year to get ready before the first snowfall.
"This is the best time for us to get our trucks out there and get the drivers acclimated back to driving those vehicles and those trucks," Liles tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "I mean you think about once you put a 12-to-14-foot plow on those trucks, they operate differently and they handle differently because of that, and they're wider."
Liles says this is also a drill to get those newer snowplow drivers training and get them familiar with routes they will be driving during snow events.
Liles says it can be hard to simulate what the routes will be like during a snow event, because once snow is on the ground it's the real deal
"There could be several inches of snow, it could be ice, it could be wind, it could be white outs and things like that very difficult for them to see, and then you've got all those things to look out for plus the traveling public," Liles explains. "The purpose of this is really the start of the process, to get them familiar with it really before the snow actually happens."
Liles says once the first snowfall does happen there will be even more training for newer plow drivers to go through as they are actually plowing alongside a veteran driver.
As MoDOT begins to prepare for snow, they are also still in need of more snowplow drivers.
Liles says the department plows snow over 34,000 miles of roadway statewide, which takes close to 3,000 people to manage.
Liles says if they were to have to shift into a 24-hour shift for snow management, right now they might not be able to do that.
"So, we're down statewide around a couple hundred people at least just to try to man those trucks to get that done," Liles points out. "So, we know that if we have a snow event that's going to last for over 12 hours, we get into a 24-hour situation, we may not be able to manage all those trucks unless we can get some more people hired."
Liles says the hardest part of training those new drivers is getting them used to the trucks, which as soon as they get their CDL license they can then join crews out on the roads to start learning.