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uuuugr to ure ivuu cuimirucuon superintendent for the FauquierRappahannock residency; he oversees the rebuilding of secondary roads. "We got him from the Prince William Department and we were lucky to get him!” Mr. Moore says.
But on the afternoon of the first day of the storm of *87, Smitty isn’t supervising: he’s closing in on a 12hour shift in the motor grader. "When you’re short-handed, you help out where you can . . . And doing something different is always a challenge,’’ Smitty says.
Different, yes. Also bumpy, noisy and freezing cold - the kind of cold that numbs your toes, burns your ears and stings your nose. Smitty stands in the tiny cab of the motor grader, both doors open so he can see the road to keep the machine traveling in a straight line. There is no heater in the cab; just a steering wheel, a couple of pedals on the floor and a dashboard fall of hand controls for moving the blade and the two sets of wheels. He cant sit down on this job. There’s a blade underneath the cab and if he sits, he can see only it8tip.
Operating the motor grader takes eyes in the back of the head and eyes on the sides as well. Smitty watches the traffic, particularly the tractor-trailers bulling their way around the by-pass; he watches the road; he watches the blade and he watches the shoulder, taking care to keep well away from snow-filled ditches that can suck the motorgrader into their depths.
Back in the state car, Mr. Moore points out stretches of road where the snow cover is brown. The color wmesfrra AJnitfia^pf sandandsodium chloride spread on trouble spots - hills and curves - as the snow -started. These—Becttoitr weren’t plowed until the snow depth reached about four inches. "If we push off the snow too early, we take the chemicals along with it,” the assistant engineer explains.
The mixture works for approximately two hours to both improve
75.5%