While most people were still snug in their beds, Steven Huckins was seven hours into a 12-plus-hour shift, preparing for Round 2 against Thursday morning’s snowstorm.
At 4:30 a.m. he swung himself up into his 11-foot-tall 1987 International Paystar dump truck. Huckins coaxed it to life and rolled into formation behind two lead plows. Together, the three plows worked together to clear the roads around Tilton and into Laconia before the morning commute.
Huckins, a 37-year veteran of the state’s Department of Transportation and the assistant foreman at NHDOT’s 313 Tilton Patrol Shed, began at 9 p.m. the night before in preparation for the storm. Before that, he worked another long shift, starting at 10 p.m. Tuesday night and working until 3:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.
Long hours have become common for him and his crews at NHDOT combating the 20-plus inches of snowfall the state has seen in February alone, plus four more fresh inches from Wednesday night’s storm.
It’s a tiring job and not meant for the faint of heart, Huckins said.
It takes a lot of patience and the right mindset to get through long days, especially when commuters try to rush past. Huckins has seen a few close calls in his day, enough to make his heart race.
“Sometimes it makes you want to tear your hair out, the way people act,” he said. “I hear people with criticism, and I invite them to come try it.”
But despite the frustration a few impatient commuters cause him, Huckins takes a fierce pride in his work, making multiple “passes” through an area if he’s not satisfied with how the snowbanks look.
“You have to take a certain pride in your work,” he said. “You want the road to look like your own family’s driveway.”
World wakes up The roads have an eerie feeling at 4:30 a.m., particularly around the usually bustling intersections near the Tanger Outlets in Tilton.
As the three plows split off, he waved goodbye to his teammates.
Those who are awake in the wee hours make the morning all the more bizarre. A pair of runners, sporting headlamps, cruised up Route 11A on the sidewalk, well outside the range of the plow’s spray. Not so safe, however, was a man snowblowing at the road’s edge, whom Huckins saves from a tidal wave of snow by slowing down and lifting the plow away from the road.
Little gets in the way of Huckins’s plowing routine this early; with hardly any traffic he and his boss have the power to switch some of the traffic lights off their patterns to a steady, blinking yellow while the snow is in full force. This means less stopping for the Paystar, which despite it’s heavy-duty appearance, can stall on a steep hill like any other vehicle with a manual transmission.
But as the world wakes up, the real hazard becomes clear: impatient drivers, some of whom pass Huckins’s plow on narrow, double yellow-lined stretches of Route 3.
“This is the worst part,” Huckins said, as the plow passed by the Rodeway Inn in Tilton, where the road narrows as it snakes along Lake Winnisquam’s edge. “It gets kinds of scary when people try to pass you here with a trailer tractor in the other lane.”
Huckins understands people’s frustration with plows; he’s not fast, and people often forget to account for snow delays when going to work. Still, his job is to clear the roads of hazards, not become one.
“People have to take responsibility,” he said.
Part of the problem, Huckins said, is reduced visibility. Not just from the weather or the limitations of the cab, but from a lack of a wingman riding in the passenger seat. Plows used to be helmed by two workers, and the second person often helped the driver out when looking to change lanes.
Those cuts have led to longer days for full-time DOT employees during the winter months. And when one shift runs into the next, that’s when you see people’s true colors.
“People can get cranky, when they’ve missed a night of sleep,” Huckins said. “It’s hard, too, if you haven’t seen your family in a while.”
Rest is fleeting, but welcome. The state requires employees take an hour-and-a-half break every 12 hours, and the time can be used for everything from naps to breakfast. Producing grub is usually Huckins’ role at the shed: at 6:30 a.m. the air filled with the smell of bacon and sausage, cooked in pans heated on the shed’s wood stove.
Back at it By 7 a.m. Huckins refilled his truck with salt and got back in the saddle. The roads looked mostly clear, and Huckins conceded he could probably leave the roads alone for a while.
Still, he had a long way to go before the day is done, with rows of slush on the shoulders of the road and snowbanks that could be pushed a little farther back.
He went out a third time to make sure everything was squared away. By 9:30 a.m., the Route 3 corridor cut a black rail through the snowy landscape, hardly a flake to be seen.
(Caitlin Andrews can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @ActualCAndrews.)