The Washington County Engineer’s Office has been busy this fall preparing for winter road conditions.

County Engineer Jacob Thorius comments on their progress, “Things are going good. We’re working on pulling in shoulders, reshaping the road, cutting grass, cleaning the edges, and just getting everything ready for the road as we do very little maintenance on them in the winter months. Once it freezes up it’s kind of hard to do work on them.”

Thorius says crews have been checking maintenance vehicle blades to make sure they’re ready for when the snow and ice hits, “So we’ve actually been working with all of our equipment. [We] started in October putting stuff on all our trucks and everything and trying it out. Making sure it works again, that nothing happened sitting from last spring until now. So everything’s been on once or twice. [We] ran through to make sure it works. It’s back off now because we’re hauling rock or doing some other little maintenance projects so everything’s ready to go there. Same with the motor graders, they’ve checked their wings and been working to make sure that stuff’s ready for the big snow, if that ever happens.”

The county is ready for icy roads, as the salt shed can hold about three years of salt needed for roads and the county currently has 2,000 tons stored with 800 more tons on its way.