{"id":22047,"date":"2016-02-05T12:01:59","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T19:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=22047"},"modified":"2018-06-01T10:25:33","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T16:25:33","slug":"let-it-snow-physical-plant-pulls-all-stops-to-clear-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=22047","title":{"rendered":"Let it snow: Physical Plant pulls all stops to clear campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_1053\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>For Rob Dougherty, preparation for this week\u2019s storms began long before the first flakes started to fall Sunday.<\/p>\n

Last fall, Dougherty, executive director, Physical Plant Department, and representatives of several other campus departments attended a meeting called by Tim Stoecklein, emergency management program director, Department of Public Safety. The topic? Predictions and preparations for snowy and wintry weather.<\/p>\n

Those predictions played out, and this week\u2019s storms delivered. Working nearly around the clock with a variety of heavy equipment and snow shovels, the Physical Plant cleared sidewalks and roads, helped stranded motorists and even cleared some areas in a children\u2019s playground.<\/p>\n

\"snow\"\u201cI\u2019m very proud of the team,\u201d Dougherty said. \u201cWhenever you have day after day after day of snow removal \u2013 and for some of the team it was hand shoveling \u2013 it\u2019s very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Late last week, with temperatures hitting a balmy 50 degrees on campus, Stoecklein was watching a winter storm making landfall on the West Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is shaping up to be a high impact event across the region in terms of travel,\u201d Stoecklein warned in an email sent to staff in various departments last week.<\/p>\n

Dougherty, too, was preparing for snow. His team checked inventories of ice melt and sand and made sure equipment was ready to go and positioned on campus for snow.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a> On Sunday, Jan. 31, as the storm rolled in, facilities personnel began what would become a weeklong effort. Sunday evening, UCCS officials decided the university would close Monday Feb. 1 \u2013 the first of two snow days. The last of the facilities crew finished their work around 11 p.m. Sunday after making sure roadways would be passable in case of emergency.<\/p>\n

The forecast called for heavy snow Monday \u2013 and the forecast was right. About 15 inches had fallen by the time the storm was over and campus reopened Wednesday. Most of the 65 employees in the Physical Plant Department are considered \u201cessential,\u201d so they reported to campus around 6 a.m. on the days campus was closed, wrapping up around 11 p.m. On Wednesday, with classes back in session, facilities personnel were on campus by 4 a.m. \u2013 and again on Friday morning after 2 more inches of snow fell on campus. Clearing snow means ensuring 3 million square feet of roads, parking lots and walkways are safe.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0856\"<\/a> Even when campus is closed for a snow day, activity doesn\u2019t stop, Dougherty said. The Peak Vista health clinic in the Lane Center remained open. Some motorists came onto campus and got stuck, so facilities crews helped get them moving again. Some students live on campus in residence halls, along with staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to be out and about,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s one of our big focuses with snow removal. ”<\/p>\n

Stoecklein noted the role that facilities personnel played in the storms. \u201cThey really carry the bulk of the effort when it comes to snow removal and getting campus back to normal procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Handling any storm or similar event is a team effort, Dougherty and Stoecklein said, involving public safety, dispatch, facilities, housing, dining and others. Dougherty applauded the dining team, which invited his facilities workers to breakfast Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

UCCS has already seen 21 of what Dougherty calls \u201csnow events.\u201d That means any day in which snow removal is needed. In the seven years he\u2019s worked at UCCS, the most he\u2019s seen in any year is 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still expecting another one as big as this one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1019\"<\/a> For anyone who wasn\u2019t prepared for this week\u2019s storms, Stoecklein offered this: \u201cWe could see more significant winter weather all the way into April. We\u2019re bound to have another storm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snow removal facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Equipment:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When asked which equipment facilities used during this week\u2019s storms, Dougherty said, \u201cAll of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That included nine plow trucks (two with sanders), four utility service vehicles (including two new ones, with two more to come), one tractor (also new), four snow blowers and 50 or so snow shovels.<\/p>\n

Materials<\/strong><\/p>\n

Facilities dropped 20 tons of material on roadways and uses two kinds of ice melt \u2013 one for newer concrete so as not to cause damage.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1035\"<\/a>Parking lots <\/strong><\/p>\n

UCCS hired a contractor with a front-end loader to lift snow into piles, especially in parking lots. That helps minimize the number of parking spots lost to snow piles.<\/p>\n

Working around abandoned cars in parking lots can pose a challenge for snow removal, Dougherty. He suggested that anyone who needs to leave a car on campus drive it to a parking garage if possible.<\/p>\n

Beyond roads and sidewalks<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Physical Plant department responds to all manner of needs for snow removal. The Family Development Center, for example, asked for help removing snow from the sidewalks within the playground area so children could go outside.<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s softball team has a game soon, so facilities personnel will begin removing snow from the softball field next week so the team can practice.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"IMG_0894\"<\/a>\"IMG_0823\"<\/a>\"IMG_1040\"<\/a>\"IMG_1028\"<\/a>\"IMG_0899\"<\/a><\/p>\n

— Photos and video by Jeffrey M Foster and Rob Dougherty<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working nearly around the clock with a variety of heavy equipment and snow shovels, the Physical Plant cleared sidewalks and roads, helped stranded motorists and even cleared some areas in a children\u2019s playground. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":22060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,13,22],"tags":[43,197],"class_list":["post-22047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-photo-features","category-video","tag-department-of-public-safety","tag-photo-feature"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/New-Service-Vehicles-006-300x225-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-5JB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22047"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29263,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22047\/revisions\/29263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}