Storm systems are building and expected to dump snow from the Midwest to the East Coast this week, starting with up to 8 inches predicted to fall Tuesday in Charlottesville. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning on Monday for a period from 10 a.m. Tuesday to 7 a.m. on Wednesday.
University of Virginia Facilities Management workers are ready for the storm.
“We’re getting plows on the trucks and tractors and putting de-icers in strategic locations,” Richard Hopkins, associate director of the Grounds, said.
The University uses rock salt to keep the snow from bonding to roads and magnesium chloride to melt ice on sidewalks. They use a noncorrosive liquid de-icer on the exposed decks of parking garages.
The landscaping crew combines sand and rock salt as a road treatment to keep ice from forming and to provide traction.
“It keeps the snow slushy and easier to plow,” Hopkins said.
Facilities Management has a bin that holds between 75 and 100 tons of rock salt and a similarly sized bin that holds a one-third salt, two-thirds sand mixture, as well as a tractor trailer of magnesium chloride. Hopkins said most of this gets used up in a good-sized snowstorm and then the University restocks.
The University has some roads, such as McCormick and Copeley roads, that are its responsibility to plow, and there are others it shares with the City of Charlottesville.
Facilities Management has about 38 miles of sidewalks on Grounds to clear, most of which are kept open with tractor-mounted plows. Hopkins said some of the sidewalks must be cleared by hand because of stairs that make using tractors impossible.
Facilities Management employees, from left, Doug Matthews, Travis Moyer and Justin Bernard fill backpack sprayers with a solution to help melt snow and prevent refreezing. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)
University crews begin clearing once the snow has started.
“We need about an inch or so of snow to be able to plow,” Hopkins said. “We keep going to keep it from getting too deep and if the storm lets up a little, then maybe we can get ahead of it.”
Hopkins said the landscaping and Medical Center crews will work in 12-hour shifts, and the University has reserved 150 hotel rooms in town for workers who live farther away.
