INDOT officials are ready for the onset of ice and snow. Plymouth Sub-district Operations Manager Stacy Flick says they’ve been going doing preventive maintenance on all equipment and stocking their salt barns. He says the drivers are ready to go as well.
“We’ve got 900 lane miles here in the Plymouth sub-district we’ve got to maintain. We’ve got 35 routes and 40 people here, 38 trucks, so we’re all ready to go. We’ve got a new logistics center down in Winamac that’s going to support all of our operations. It’s pretty exciting. I’ve been here 36 years, and I’m ready to go.]
INDOT has also restructured its resources in order to maximize efficiency. They reopened the Plymouth Sub-District and turned the Winamac facility into a logistics center.
“They will support us with equipment, manpower, mechanics, you name it. Material, whatever support we need, they’re going to supply us,” Flick says. “If most of the snow is in the north, we’ll go north. If it’s in the south, we’ll go south. INDOT is looking to be more versatile in the 21st century, and we’re getting better. If you don’t change, you get left behind, and INDOT’s on the cutting edge at all times.”
New this year is the tow-plow truck. It’s a large truck with a tandem-axle trailer that can clear two lanes of a highway at once. It will be used on two-lane divided highways like U.S. 30 and U.S. 31.
