For the first time this winter, snow plow drivers in Manitowoc County are on the roads with the blades on the pavement.
We reached out to Manitowoc County Highway Director Greg Grotegut, who said his guys are excited to “finally see some snow come off the blade.”
The first wave of workers was actually in at around midnight to start salting, with the calvary coming in at 3:00 a.m. to get the trucks ready.
Grotegut is reminding drivers to slow down and back up.
“Any speed limit over 35 should be at least 200 feet behind our plows,” he reminds drivers. “They have a lot of stuff going in there. Wings, double wings, sanders. They are preoccupied with a lot of things, plus driving the plow itself.”
While this is the first major snow event of the season and of 2024, Grotegut says his guys have been plenty busy.
“We have actually been doing a lot of tree removals in right of ways,” he explained. “We had a lot of frost issues for the last month already too.”
He also noted that his team helped with the crashes over the holidays.
“Our guys usually fix guar rails in those incidents also,” he said.
The plows will be running all day as needed.
Grotegut noted that he typically has the plows running through 8:00 p.m. before bringing the drivers back in to get some rest before sending them out again at around 3:00 a.m. the next morning.
Also of note, numerous cancelations and closings have been announced.
Click here to see those.
