The morning after a winter storm, it’s not uncommon to see students making their trek down Jeff Hill at a glacial pace, staggering and slipping with every other step.
But residents should exercise more caution than usual, city and county officials said. Athens is currently waiting on its next shipment of road salt, and until then, it is focusing its efforts on main streets and hills.
Athens County Engineer Jeff Maiden said Athens had 200 tons of salt remaining before the last storm.
The county typically purchases 2,000 tons per winter, he said, and the county has spent roughly $140,000 this year on road salt, sand and trucks to clear the roads. However, this figure does not include overtime for county employees driving snow and salt vehicles.
“This has been a really bad winter,” Maiden said. “This is only my second year as county engineer, but it’s probably the worst winter in 15 years.”
Maiden said as of Wednesday afternoon, there were 16 dump trucks and three pickup trucks handling the area’s ice and snow.
Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl said that as of 4 p.m. Wednesday, the city had approximately 140 tons of salt on hand. He said he had received an email from engineering and public works director Andy Stone saying that the city was waiting on a shipment of 800 tons, though the email did not say when the salt would arrive.
“We do mix (the salt) with sand, and the mix was pretty heavy sand last week which extends it and provides grit,” Wiehl said. “We’re being frugal. If we’re short on salt, we don’t throw it away on roads that don’t really need it.”
Councilman Steve Patterson, D-at-large, said the lack of salt isn’t as large of a concern as it’s being made to be, and that the salt will arrive soon enough for the city not to worry. Most residential complaints have not been about ice, but about snow plowing.
Though the city plans for a certain amount of snowfall every year, this year was unexpected in the amount of severe winter weather.
“With the volume of snow and the amount of snow equipment, we can only get things moved so fast,” Patterson said. “Andy Stone is working around the clock to get things up and moving as soon as possible.”
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