Frank Shaw has seen it all when it comes to Amarillo weather – from blizzards to floods to hurricane-force winds.
“I was born and raised in Amarillo, so I have pretty much seen it all,” Shaw said.
Shaw is a perfect example of the employees in the City of Amarillo (COA) Street Department, who are just as skilled at monitoring the weather like a meteorologist as they are driving and maintaining massive sand trucks.
“We are always watching the weather. Always,” said COA Street Superintendent Len Hill.
Hill has been in Amarillo since 1973 and has almost 20 years of service with the city.
Shaw, a street supervisor, is approaching 26 years of service with the city.
That is almost 50 years of combined experience responding to Amarillo weather and how it impacts city streets and roads.
The snow event earlier this month, which resulted in at least three inches of snow in the Amarillo area, had the COA Street Department ready days before a snowflake actually fell.
The COA Street Department began weather preparation on Tuesday (the week of January 6).
The COA Street Department worked 12-hour shifts for four days – spreading a mixture of salt and sand on vital and important roads for public safety. COA does not conduct snow removal on residential streets.
“We get out there as fast as possible for roads that connect to hospitals, roads that need to be open for emergency services, like the Amarillo Police Department and the Amarillo Fire Department so they can get in and out,” Shaw said. “When we deploy, we want to get those roads done as quickly as possible.”
Amarillo weather can be extreme, such as in February of 2013 when Amarillo was socked with just more than 19 inches of snow in a one-day period.
“This is a team effort,” Shaw said. “One person may have 24 hours of overtime during a snow removal operation, and one person may have eight hours. That does not mean that the person who worked eight hours of overtime did not do something to make this happen.
“Everybody has a job, and they get it done.”
Facts, figures and statistics from the recent COA snow response:
- The COA Street Department used 31 pieces of equipment, including nine (9) dump trucks with spreaders, three (3) single-axle sand trucks, four (4) motor graders to plow snow drifts, four (4) front end loaders and one (1) backhoe.
- COA Street Department staff drove more than 6,500 miles over four (4) days.
- Approximately 900 tons of salt/sand mixture were used.
- Ten (10) COA Street Department employees exceeded 32 hours of overtime with three (3) exceeding 40-hours of overtime in the one-week period.
For more information contact City of Amarillo Media Relations Manager Dave Henry at (806) 378-5219 or by email at David.Henry@amarillo.gov
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