Crews across Westmoreland County ready for Friday, weekend snowfall

GREENSBURG, Pa. — Crews all across Westmoreland County are ready to to go before the snow even starts falling Friday morning.

“Trucks are loaded, equipment’s ready to go. We have five trucks ready to be deployed,” said Dante DeCario, the Westmoreland County Public Works Director.

DeCario said the county has 52 miles of road to cover. That’s actually three miles less than the city of Greensburg’s roads.

“We’re more scattered, but we do have roadways all across the county,” DeCario noted.

The county is bringing its crews in starting at 4 a.m. Friday. Four will start and work a 12 hour shift, and then be replaced by four others. All will remain on call if needed.

“They’ll cover all of them [the roads] equally, but we tend to get more in the Mount Pleasant area, in the ridges, so those get more accumulation just because of where they’re at, the elevation,” he said. “They will continually keep all our 52 miles clear and treated as needed.”

Meanwhile, the City of Greensburg is calling its crews in starting at 3 a.m. Friday.

“We have nine trucks ready to go, we loaded them with salt ready to go,” said Tom Bell, Greensburg Public Works Director. “On a normal call out we use 100 to 125 tons of salt to get around town.”

Bell said every district in the city has truck ready to go.

“What we try to do is cover most of the hills right off the bat,” Bell said. “It is challenging here in the city of Greensburg because our 7th and 8th District are nothing but hills.”

But preparation is key — as is timing. Bell hopes the bulk of the snow comes during the day when the sun is up.

“If it all comes during the day, the heaviest part, with the traffic moving and the salt down, keeps it at bay I would say, helps us out tremendously,” Bell said.

Bell also told Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek that it takes about three to three-and-a-half hours to salt all 55 miles of road the City of Greensburg has.

So, depending on how quickly the snow is falling — the first round of salt should be on the roads around 6 a.m., right in time for the morning commute.

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