ABOVE: A small city snowplow blows away snow covering part of the sidewalk by Ward Park in Fairmont on Wednesday. Fairmont Public Works Director Nick Lardy said when it snows they prioritize roads first.

FAIRMONT – With 10.5 inches of snow falling in Fairmont Saturday, city and county services were put to the test in a way they hadn’t been for several years.

In any snow emergency, Fairmont Superintendent of Public Works Nick Lardy said their number one priority is to make the streets safe and passable in a quick and efficient way. As for how to accomplish that, he said it is different for every snowfall.

“Depends on time of day, the duration of the event, what the conditions are,” Lardy said. “You’ve got to play it for each event. Typically, on a normal snowfall, we try to come in early and get things cleaned up before most of the city is out and about running around, trying to make it easily passable and safe.”

Fairmont’s fleet of snow plows is 16 vehicles, including six dump trucks with sanding, two motor graders, two front-end loaders, three jeeps, two duallys and one pickup, all with snow plows. Manning and taking care of these machines includes 18 drivers and two mechanics on Public Works Staff.

Lardy said the routes they go on are pre-determined, but can be shifted depending on circumstances brought on by the snow.

“Everybody has their own assigned route, and in that, each route has its priorities,” he said. “For example, a certain route, if it’s around a school or something, we hit the streets first to make it passable for the busier areas in town. Sometimes we move a couple trucks in and do a tag team operation to clear the street off faster.”

Regardless, Lardy said the roads and main sidewalks are the first priority in a snow event. After those are finished, he said then they will do the other sidewalks, trails, and bike paths.

With it being the first major snowfall of the year, the biggest snow event since the 2022-23 winter, multiple drivers on new routes, a new employee learning the ropes as well and they had to cover 74 miles of streets and alleys, Lardy said it went pretty well.

“We didn’t have any major hiccups, but we got it done,” he said. “We started early Saturday morning, came in and got stuff opened up, and it snowed all day long. It got to the point where it’s really not making any sense to stay out any longer, so we pulled the trucks about 3:30 p.m. We came in early Sunday morning and hit the whole town after it was done snowing.”

While it was still snowing when the crews were pulled off, Lardy said everyone had worked around 13 hours by that point, and pushing them further would have been a safety concern.

“Guys getting tired, there’s more room for error,” he said. “The crew’s got to get out of the trucks, get home, get refreshed. We can hit it the next day.”

Areas Lardy said he will look to work on for his crew are getting snow cleared closer to the edge of the curb and timing issues on applying sand. He said these issues were addressed in a post-snow event meeting Tuesday and will be adjusted moving forward.

Right now, Lardy said they still have a few vehicles out there to get everything fully cleared along roads and sidewalks.

On the county side, this was the first major test for the Martin County Highway Department’s PreCise Fleet Management Software they purchased and implemented last winter. Martin County Highway Department Engineer Kevin Peyman said it helps track the 17 plows in their system.

“Where the trucks are, where they’ve been by,” he said. “If someone calls and asks about plowing, we can see if and when a plow has been by. If we say we want all the trucks in by a certain time, we can look at the trucks still out and see if they need it done.”

Before this system, Peyman said these tasks were done by using paper maps and having the same drivers on the same clearing routes every time. While some factors outside of their control meant they didn’t get a full range of data, Peyman said this new system did produce some results.

“The main event was on a Saturday and Sunday, so we didn’t take as many calls,” he said. “It did help with the newer drivers, and we looked over the data afterward. It’s easier to analyze data when there’s veteran drivers, but with newer drivers, plus the weekend, we didn’t get to see as much. They still did a really good job overall, and now we’re just trying to get the ice pack and such finished up.”

Moving forward, Peyman said this system will help with addressing county resident concerns and provide info on how to tweak plow routes so people are best served.

“It helps with looking back in hindsight,” he said. “We get questions about the roads never getting plowed, so we can always have that data to answer questions and help balance routes.”

For questions about Fairmont City plowing, call 507-235-9330. For questions about Martin County plowing, call 507-235-3347.