Photo courtesy of Houghton County Road Commission

HOUGHTON COUNTY – The Houghton County Road Commission (HCRC) worked round-the-clock during this past weekend’s blizzard, which dumped roughly 14 inches of snow on the Copper Country.

HCRC Engineer/Manager Kevin Harju said crews had a tough time of it for a while, but were successful in clearing most roads of drifts and deep snow. “Most of the roads are cleared as far as I know; all the roads will get plowed by the end of the day, it’s just kind of slow going,” Harju said Monday afternoon. “The problem is, within an hour or two after we plowed some of the roads, they’re drifting again, so we’re backtracking on some of them, especially the primary roads.”

Harju said Sunday’s blizzard did not seem as bad as the Thanksgiving Week storm, because there was not the volume of snow with this blizzard.

“But with the wind, the drifts are very dense,” he said. “There were some side roads and back roads that had large drifts, so when our plows are trying to remove snow, there were vehicles actually stuck in the roadway.”

The burden put on vehicles while clearing roads of drifts and heavy snow can take a toll on equipment. Harju said a number of vehicles experienced a break.

“We had an axle on a plow truck break,” Harju said, “and hydraulic hoses blew out on some the plow trucks.”

The HCRC is responsible for 844 miles of roads along with 40 bridges, doing so with 36 full-time employees.

The HCRC operates 11 graders, with a current cost estimate of $550,000 each, along with 20 sander/plow trucks, each with an estimated cost of $467,000, according to the HCRC’s website.

Harju said the Road Commission receives forecast briefings from the National Weather Service at least once a day, which he said is very helpful.

“We were lucky we had that little warm-up before this storm as far as making the snowbanks a little less tall,” Harju said. “The drifting could have been a lot worse if we’d had higher snowbanks.”