After a sleet and ice storm laid a white carpet across the region Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 6-7, J.R. McMahon said this winter has been unlike any other in his 35 years working for Miami County.
“In Miami County, this has never happened before as long as I’ve been around — we’ve been in a blizzard warning, we’ve been in a winter storm warning and now we’ve been in an ice storm warning,” said McMahon, director of the Road and Bridge Department. “That usually doesn’t happen in the same year, and this thing started in November. We had snow storms in early November.” McMahon said the department used six main trucks, three single-axle trucks and two four-by-four vehicles to carry out its work on county roads, laying down a mixture of sand and salt. “Usually it’s a combination of five parts sand to one part salt,” he said. “With sleet and ice, typically you can go to a seven-to-one ratio.”
In this area, most people don’t realize the mixture relies on traffic to be most effective, McMahon said.
“The salt will lay on there, and it takes that traffic to put it into what’s called brine,” McMahon said. “That’s why you see the main routes are the first cleared.”
(Read more: The Miami County Republic)