By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
It may only be the beginning of fall, but Missouri Department of Transportation snowplow drivers will be out today preparing for the upcoming winter.
District Maintenance and Traffic Engineer Greg Bolon says drivers will be out starting this morning.
"We've got new hires that we have to get trained, and this won't be the only event we do either," Bolon tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "So they've got to get some training when it's not snowing and then they also have to get some training the first time it does snow so that we can make sure they're ready to operate the vehicles."
Bolon says this will be a statewide simulated weather drill, which will include workers also playing out what will actually occur when the first winter storm hits.
Bolon says these drills are a good training opportunity for new drivers to learn their routes before the snow.
"So, they can kind of look and see well there's a drop off there in that ditch, so we need to slow down going around this curb, so it really helps get familiar with your route, because it's not something you drive every day," Bolon explains.
Bolon says it's also a chance to learn technical things such as hooking up the plow and backing into the salt bays to load up
"So, some of those things that you don't do for eight months, now it kind of gets your mind back into thinking ok winter's coming, I have to start looking for this, I have to start looking for that," Bolon says.
Bolon says there will be several drills happening prior to the first snowfall, needing to train the around 30 to 40 new hires MoDOT has made since April.
Bolon says despite all those hirings, there is still a need for more plow drivers.
"I think we probably have somewhere around 25 vacancies throughout our 20-county area," Bolon points out. "There's quite a few locally in the St. Joe area, I'm going to say around nine to 10, so we are always looking for more operators."
Bolon says all the trucks are ready to go and the supply of salt is nearly full and ready for the winter.