Just after midnight Feb. 10 Smyrna native Tom Hess climbs into the cab of his Delaware Department of Transportation plow truck, the first in a line of three plows idling behind the Wawa on Court Street in Dover.
His fleet just finished a run down South Governors Avenue and is preparing to head north on Route 13 in what he calls a tandem formation, a phalanx of plows staggered across three lanes in a stair-step arrangement.
The six-wheeled behemoth of a dump truck is filled to the brim with a mixture of sand and road salt and fitted with a massive steel plow blade as wide as a lane of traffic.
Hess looks at the cluster of gauges on the dash — air temperature: 29 degrees, road surface: 24 degrees.
“It’s about to get crazy,” he says.
The very definition of a wintry mix has been falling all evening in much of Kent County, snowflakes swirling among beads of sleet and raindrops. The dense, crunchy white coating sticks to the piles of snow leftover from the Feb. 6 storm like frosting on a coconut cake.
The heavy stuff isn’t due to fall for another five or six hours, but Hess and his team need to stay as far ahead of the storm as possible.
He puts the truck into gear and lumbers out into the northbound lanes of Route 13, headed for Duck Creek, just north of Smyrna.
With the blade down, Hess keeps his speed between 15 and 25 miles per hour. At that rate, the trip from Dover to Smyrna and back takes approximately two-and-a-half hours, including stops and turnarounds.
On the way, he talks about what might be the most important job around on a night like this.
Q: Do you enjoy your job?
A: Yeah, I enjoy it. This storm is beating us up a little bit because it’s two big storms back to back. I look forward to it, the overtime helps us out a little bit, we get a little extra money, and they take care of us in terms of getting us meal tickets and things like that.
Q: How much overtime do you get?
A: It varies. If we get a bad winter, we get a lot. If we don’t get a bad winter, we don’t get that much overtime. Throughout the year, not just the wintertime, we’ll get called out if there’s an accident or whatever. I got called in one night because there was a couch in the middle of Route 1. A tractor trailer hit it and just blew it apart. We were out there picking it up. There is a little bit of overtime throughout the year but our main overtime is during the snow.
Just after midnight Feb. 10 Smyrna native Tom Hess climbs into the cab of his Delaware Department of Transportation plow truck, the first in a line of three plows idling behind the Wawa on Court Street in Dover.
His fleet just finished a run down South Governors Avenue and is preparing to head north on Route 13 in what he calls a tandem formation, a phalanx of plows staggered across three lanes in a stair-step arrangement.
The six-wheeled behemoth of a dump truck is filled to the brim with a mixture of sand and road salt and fitted with a massive steel plow blade as wide as a lane of traffic.
Hess looks at the cluster of gauges on the dash — air temperature: 29 degrees, road surface: 24 degrees.
“It’s about to get crazy,” he says.
The very definition of a wintry mix has been falling all evening in much of Kent County, snowflakes swirling among beads of sleet and raindrops. The dense, crunchy white coating sticks to the piles of snow leftover from the Feb. 6 storm like frosting on a coconut cake.
The heavy stuff isn’t due to fall for another five or six hours, but Hess and his team need to stay as far ahead of the storm as possible.
He puts the truck into gear and lumbers out into the northbound lanes of Route 13, headed for Duck Creek, just north of Smyrna.
With the blade down, Hess keeps his speed between 15 and 25 miles per hour. At that rate, the trip from Dover to Smyrna and back takes approximately two-and-a-half hours, including stops and turnarounds.
On the way, he talks about what might be the most important job around on a night like this.
Q: Do you enjoy your job?
A: Yeah, I enjoy it. This storm is beating us up a little bit because it’s two big storms back to back. I look forward to it, the overtime helps us out a little bit, we get a little extra money, and they take care of us in terms of getting us meal tickets and things like that.
Q: How much overtime do you get?
A: It varies. If we get a bad winter, we get a lot. If we don’t get a bad winter, we don’t get that much overtime. Throughout the year, not just the wintertime, we’ll get called out if there’s an accident or whatever. I got called in one night because there was a couch in the middle of Route 1. A tractor trailer hit it and just blew it apart. We were out there picking it up. There is a little bit of overtime throughout the year but our main overtime is during the snow.
Q: What’s your work schedule like during a snowstorm?
A: Our regular workday is 7 [a.m.] to 3 [p.m.], so 7 o’clock tomorrow morning we’ll be back on straight time and after three we go back to overtime. They give us downtime; we’ll go rest. They’ll say, “Things are calmed down, come in and rest.” There’s food everywhere in the shop — we had pork chops for dinner tonight. When we found out how big the storm was going to be, we all pitched in money and we bought $270 worth of lunchmeat. They give us enough warning that we can get prepared.
Q: What do you and your fellow DelDOT Cheswold yard workers do during the rest of the year?
A: We maintain the roads. If there’s a pothole, we fill it. You’ll see us out on some of the back roads, last year we did Route 13, crack sealing. We’ve got a big tar pot that heats up the tar and we fill the cracks. Cutting grass is one of our big things. We cut all the grass on Route 1 some of the grass on 13, a lot of the back roads. We just maintain the roads in terms of beautification and maintenance.
Q: What kind of training do you need to run a plow?
A: You’ve got to have a CDL license. When I started with the state, I already had my CDL license, but if they think you’d be a good employee and they hire you, they’ll help you get the CDL license. I had to run a course with this truck and a plow on it through barrels. You have to drive through in a serpentine and then back up through them, then go up one side and then the other side. We have to back the spreader up into a box, just to get used to how big your truck is. When I did it I was in the shop for a week and a half. If you hit the barrels, you fail and you have to train again. You go until you pass, but I’ve never seen anybody fail. Not saying it’s easy, but you’re ready.
A: Are there any special techniques to driving a plow?
Q: Really there’s not. It gets a little crazy going through towns. If you kick the plow sideways it’ll tuck the corner in a little bit and I can get a little closer and keep away from cars. For the most part, the plow is only going to go where you take it. When we’re pushing snow, everything goes to the right. Roads are crowned and if you push everything to the left, when it thaws it’ll run across the road and refreeze. These plows do not ride flat on the ground; we’d tear the pavement up. They have shoes on them that keep them up. We’re very close but we’re not on the ground.
Q: What happens if, while in the course of your duties, you accidently clip a car?
A: It does happen and it’s just like being in your personal car. The police have got to be called; if it’s your fault, you get a ticket. From what I’ve seen, there’s no special treatment for a DelDOT worker in terms of accidents. If you hit somebody, you’ll know. I’ve never hit anybody, but a couple storms ago I was in our big, big truck — they call it the Walters. It has a big V-plow on it and there was a lot of hard-packed ice on the road. I was out trying to bust the hard pack, I was coming down the road and I was busy watching the right hand side. But with the V-plow it comes off both sides, and a big chunk came up and hit a car going by on the other side and cracked his windshield, cracked his grill all up. The police weren’t called, nobody was hurt; he just came to the yard and reported it. I didn’t even know, I couldn’t see since he was going by. But, I didn’t get any points on my license or anything; it does go on my permanent record.
Q: When you’re hanging out with your friends and family, what kind of burning questions do they ask you about your job?
A: Lately, the big thing is, “Why is there never a plow truck on these back roads?” or, “When we see you guys your plows are always up.” But they don’t understand what exactly is going on. I don’t take care of the town of Smyrna, for example, so if you see me riding through the town of Smyrna, I’m going to have my plow up; I’m traveling back and forth. Personally, if I’m in someone else’s area that is part of DelDOT, and I see something that needs to be done, I’ll do it. I try not to ride with my plow up. Everybody has this thing that DelDOT doesn’t do anything; they stand around and one guy does the work while six others watch. And sometimes that’s the case, but when it comes to snow, it’s not the case. The general rule is, put your plow down no matter where you’re going.
Timeline
11:55 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 9
Hess arrives at the Wawa on Court Street in Dover with two other plows and two chase trucks. After a day of work that began at 7 a.m., they’ve just completed a swing down South Governors Avenue.
12:05 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10
The trucks head north on Route 13 in a staggered “tandem” formation. The lead truck rides in the left lane, pushing snow to the right. A second plow rides in the center lane behind the lead truck and moves the snow into the right lane, where a final trailing plow pushes it off the road.
12:50 a.m.
The crew makes a U-turn just north of Route 42 in Cheswold and head for a staging area next to the Hostess snack cake store on the west side of Route 13. There, Hess gets a new battery for his walkie-talkie from a fellow driver and waits for a supervisor to tell his crew to keep heading north or return to Dover.
1:35 a.m.
The drivers are told to head for Smyrna. Snow is accumulating quicker and quicker to the north on Route 13 and the rain-snow line seems to be somewhere right around Garrisons Lake. Word comes down that Gov. Jack Markell declared a state of emergency at midnight, which includes driving restrictions for all non-essential personnel. “That’s good for us,” Hess says.
2:05 a.m.
Just north of the Route 13 bridge over Duck Creek, the crew makes a U-turn and heads for Dover.
2:30 a.m.
The second truck in the line turns west on Route 42 and heads for home base at the DelDOT Cheswold yard. A few miles back, she hit a rock or pothole with her plow and the bump jarred her communication unit from its bracket on the dash and sent it flying into the windshield, causing a large crack. If she were to keep going, the crack probably would worsen and pose a safety hazard, Hess says.
2:55 a.m.
The team arrives back at the Wawa. Its shift is over and the drivers will return to the Cheswold yard for some rest. They’ll go back to work at 7 a.m.
About Hess
Age: 33
Hometown: Smyrna
Family: Married, four children
DelDOT yard: Cheswold
Plow territory: Area 8, from South Governors Avenue in Dover to the Duck Creek bridge on Route 13 north of Smyrna, west to Marydel, east to the bay.
Years on the job: 6 and a half. After his first five years, Hess left for four years to run his own construction business, but returned to DelDOT in 2008.
