ODOT office prepared for winter weather
Conditions have already caused interstate closures this season
By LARRY MEYER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Saturday, November 21, 2009 9:32 PM PST
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| An Oregon Department of Transportation snowplow stands ready to go out at a moment’s notice at the maintenance yard on Stanton Boulevard. |
ONTARIO — It has not reached Thanksgiving yet, but Oregon Department of Transportation maintenance crews are already dealing with winter conditions on the highways, and the eastbound lanes of Interstate 84 in Ladd Canyon have already been closed once in the past two weeks.
“We’re pretty well-funded,” Ric Young, maintenance manager of District 14, which takes in Malheur, Harney and Grant counties, said. “It all depends on the type of winter we get.”
Young said he holds back on spending for other maintenance projects, such as chip-sealing and patching, until spring to keep as much money as possible in his budget for snowplowing, he said.
In District 14, the plows have already been out on U.S. Highway 26 in the Austin Junction area, between Unity and Prairie City.
“Friday afternoon (Nov. 13), Ladd Canyon was closed for several hours,” Young reported, adding truckers were apparently caught unprepared for slick conditions. “Only the eastbound lanes were closed,” he said.
The first truck stopped short of the heated portion of the pavement, he said, and the freeway was closed off and on between 4 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Traffic was halted at the Union interchange, outside of La Grande.
Overweight or special permit loads are not supposed to travel during inclement weather, and the drivers are not allowed to have chains, Young said, but sometimes they still get caught by road conditions, as do some drivers whose bosses don’t want them to use chains.
“We have a pretty good system for following the weather,” Young said.
One way is ODOT’s Trip Check cameras, where motorists can get on the agency’s Web page and visually check out road conditions where cameras are available. In addition to the cameras at Ontario, Weatherby, North Powder and other locations at in Eastern Oregon, a camera is now online at Austin Junction, and cameras will soon be operational at Jordan Valley and Basque Station.
“I know they are up.” Young said, adding he would also like to put one up at Burns Junction.
New in the department’s arsenal is a new form of de-icer, which works in colder weather than the chemical previously used.
“It will work down to 4 degrees Fahrenheit,” Young said, adding the older formula only worked down to 18 degrees.
There are about 80 people working in District 14, including seasonal people hired during the winter months. Only some of them are on 24-hour call at this time.
“We try to get past Thanksgiving,” Young said, but if conditions warrant, crews will be put on 24-hour shifts sooner.
He said some parts of U.S. Highway 26, in the Austin Junction area, have already had a snow pack, so crews have to be available to make sure those are safe. Also, highway crews are often the only source of assistance for stranded motorists along more remote stretches of highway, Young noted.
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