In Case of Snow
Few forecasters are predicting that snowplows will prowl the Mid-Atlantic in the remaining months of the 2011-2012 winter, including Great Mills Trading Post (GMTP).
Often, in Lexington Park and the surrounding areas, the trucks, bobcats and graders of GMTP are the ones that move the snow out of the way. Often enough, their vehicles are needed to get folks safely mobile again and to allow daily commerce to commence. And while they’re as prepared as every year, Herbie Smith, vice president of operations at GMTP, thinks these past few mild months are an indicator for the few winter months remaining. The Farmer’s Almanac agrees.
Still, just in case a snowplow is due to cruise your street, Mr. Smith offers some basic advice to make it the most pleasant experience it can be.
First, if the weather demands snowplows, “Stay home. Minimize your travel, that’s the best thing to do,” Mr. Smith said.
Other vehicles, or people playing in the streets, can do nothing but hinder any snow clearing effort. It is above all very dangerous. Heavy removal equipment can slip in icy conditions as well as other vehicles. Stay out of the way.
Don’t park where you expect snowplows. This is of paramount importance in subdivisions.
As for homes along roads without curbs: Snow-mark your yard. Snow can hide the edge of the asphalt from view. Stakes that indicate where the asphalt ends can save yard damage.
“We don’t want to gouge,” Mr. Smith says. Nor do they want to hit reflectors, signs or mailboxes. Consider ways to mark them as well.
Nearly any kind of obvious staking will do, said Mr. Smith. “Somebody puts them out there, we know what they are.”
And whether it is this winter or a winter to come, when the snowplows come through and block your driveway, “don’t stress,” is Mr. Smith’s paramount advice.
The plows come down the middle of the road and they push the snow to the side, Mr. Smith said. This is what snowplows do. So “don’t stress,” he repeated, “when your driveway is getting a bank of snow, because it’s going to happen.”
