Long hours for snow plow drivers

GREEN BAY - It's been a long day already for the crews.

In Green Bay crews have been out since 2:30 Thursday morning trying to keep up with the storm.

They'll be out most of night. But doing that requires a bit of juggling.

If you want to know how a city like Green Bay approaches a storm like Blizzard Brianna, think of your driveway.

"Sweating. It's a little heavy,” said Bruce Leaman of Green Bay.

Leaman shoveled out midday. He knows at some point, he'll have to come back out for round two.

"Probably take double as long if it's this wet. I don't think I'll be able to use our snow blower so might as well do it in sections,” said Leaman.

Just as Leaman is breaking up the work, so is the city.

"It's the same thing as your driveway. It's a lot easier to plow two smaller snows than one big, heavy one,” said Chris Pirlot, city operations director

Pirlot says most of their attention is focused on the main roads, but with such a long storm, crews are also plowing out residential areas.

"We're not necessarily making them pretty. We're making them passable. Any resident who sees us out there, one thing I might remind them is we will be back again,” said Pirlot.

In order to plow so many roads over an extended period the city is staggering shifts to make sure no one is overworked.

"We don't want to push anyone past 16 hours. Less is preferable. The human body can only take so much stress and fatigue,” said Pirlot.

"Gets to be some long hours but I enjoy what I do,” said snow plow driver Paula Whiting.

Whiting has been plowing for four years. She doesn't mind the long day.

"We're here to keep the streets clean and safe for everybody. Just give us room to work,” said Whiting.

Crews will try to stay on top of the storm throughout the evening. Then overnight, Pirlot says everything should be cleared.

"I know the kids don't want to hear this but by tomorrow morning the kids will be able to go back to school,” said Pirlot.

So the plows will continue to be out Thursday night. The plan is at 11 o'clock, the city will call a city wide snow clean up. That's when all of the crews will go out and plow the entire city.