Seasonal Outlook

Weather's Part of the Overall Plan
We are bound completely by weather conditions that we encounter from frost to frost. Rain is an essential part of gravel road maintenance. Gravel is not surface until it has been properly graded and then saturated with water and proper compaction afterward. We have no water tankers or packers so Mother Nature is our next best friend. Our schedule is constantly fine tuned to take maximum advantage of anticipated moisture periods.
Even in the driest weather on record, there is still some rainfall periodicly. It is critical at these times to maximize any benefit you can with operations. As little as 1/10th of an inch of rain can make the difference between success and failure of a build. Even a misty morning can be beneficial. Excess rainfall can be properly managed to create no long term road damage by proper crowned surfaces with with driving lanes free of quarter-crown and minimal float on the driving surface. The surface will get somewhat slippery during the rainfall, but quickly recovers in as little as 12 hours afterward to its pre-rain condition with vitually no visible rutting or damage to the subgrade.
The part water plays is critical. It is impossible to build a road without it. Even the best gravel will not set until it gets soaked thoroughly. Water is also the single most devastating factor to a vulnerable surface. High shoulders and secondary ditches resulting from poor practices will retain water on the surface long enough for it to soak through several layers of surface, compromising the base of the roads ability to carry weight without failure. Water rinses some of the excess clays, fines and sands to the shoulder each time it rains,
and flooding can quickly remove even the best road with its awesome force. Unmanaged snow can melt and soften previously set surfaces in the critical post frost Spring season at a time when some of the heaviest traffic uses them, compounding damage.
The seasonal pattern of building in Spring, curing out in Summer and finish blading in Fall assures that Winter will not be a financial hemmorage on the budget we have to operate within. It also keeps roads improving in the long term with real improvements to the surfaces that make the road stronger, able to withstand the forces of traffic placed upon them without failure, more weather resistant and dependable, and requiring far less maintenance to stay in excellent driving condition year around.
In a prolonged drought period of absolute dry weather, the roads can be scraped clean and the material sided to preserve the critical contents. By laying a thick layer of dry loose gravel out in these conditions will only yield dusty and dangerous driving conditions, loose surface than can cause loss of control to even experienced drivers, and quickly diminish the gravel content to substandard condition that will never set without extensive efforts to replenish the lost properties of clay and fines.
Below is a description of our seasonal efforts that we make to keep all Buffalo County roads constantly improving over time. Since implemented as practical policy since 1998, these practices have improved our roads to what we now have today. Some of the safest and durable gravel surfaced roads anywhere. We are blessed with abundant gravel resources in the County, but we do not wastefully place any gravel. Our annual amount of gravel use is around 12,000 tons added to a road system that includes 186 miles of roads. With only one truck to haul with, what little we can do must count, and graveling is done by fly dumping select material and skilled handling of the material afterwards to minimize losses. Presently all of the roadways are topped with crushed stone gravel, and have from 4-8 inches of gravel surface between the wheel on the road and the subgrade below it that does the real work. This surface is the result of countless small layers of improvement over years rather than one thick build of 2 inches or more. The thin layer method yields many seals on top of one another rather than one large seal that can sporaticly fail and cause intermitent damage afer heavy rain or heavy hauling. Much of the underlying surface is recovered material set in place, and grushed gravel is set on top of that to provide a superior wear resistant driving surface. The real test is to simply drive our roads regularly and judge them for yourself. All these little details are why they last and last, and resist the forces of nature almost as well as pavement, at a fraction of the cost. With a reliability score of good to excellent over 99.7% per year, we have some of the safest gravel roads, built by the poorest County in the United States, in spite of all the shortcomings that we have. This is how we do it.

As The Days Get Shorter
Fall duties focus on closing up shop all around. Every effort has been made to properly set gravel all season. The roads are scraped clean and widened slightly, leaving little or no windrow. Roadside grasses are mowed 8-12' in preparation for winter snowstorms. Once frost sets in, little can be done other than very light blading. Once frozen, set gravel may dry rut if no snowpack occurs. The wheelcast material stays fairly well aside the tracks, and quickly sets back in Spring. Some sections of roads get severe cracks from underlying soil conditions. The material physically shrinks in extreme cold and breaks at regular intevals. This is enhanced in clay conditions with water near the ground surface. The water collects in 'frost lenses' as it freezes and pushes the roadway up below the crack, further widening the crack. Where abundant water is present, the road becomes noticeably humped in late winter as frost goes down as far as 5 feet. With timely care in Spring they quickly disappear with little overall effect.

The Awesome Winter Gamble
This is the most dreaded time of year. Everything can be at risk. The Winter season can devastate roads, account for huge expense in a bad Winter, damage our heaviest machines, and even place operator's in peril. An open or mild winter causes little or no damage in contrast. One bad Winter can easily become more than we are capable of managing if handled improperly, especially in the early snow season. Mistakes made at the beginning do not go away. What used to be referred to as "snow removal" is now Snow Management. Our 6 inch no touch rule serves many purposes, and we do not plow until snow depth reaches 6 inches. Roads are set up to blow clear and usually do so if left until the storm is over. The methods of opening roads must be mindful to not create a liability for future storms. Depending on conditions snow is managed with a one-way truck mounted plow and two patrols equipped with vee plows and snow wings. One thing snow can do at a predictable rate is shrink. Snow that is left untouched will shrink even in the coldest weather. Gravitational settling and solar condensing can reduce a fresh foot of snow down to 8 inches in less than a week in subzero cold. Snow is always at risk of drifting and accounts for more than 90% of the snow management that we do. Clean shoulders and hard topped roads are almost snow proof and resist drifting very well. It is common to see a three inch snowfall fill a ditch level full adjacent to a bare field. There is no limit to the amount of snow you can trap on a roadway if you keep doing things that create more problems. There is also no limit to how much snow can pass over a clean and properly shaped top without a ridge of frozen plowed snow upwind of it. Any time the wind reaches more than 15 mph, snow will begin to move. In blizzard winds over 50 mph, frozen hard snow will break free and become part of the overall blinding whiteout. Overall snow volume out there, calculated shrinkage and anticipated weather conditions all figure into the methods used to survive this potentially devastating season.

Click here for access to NOAA Storm Data since 1950 for Buffalo County