Sit back and relax. Pretend it's winter. Somebody just called about plans for a Super Bowl party. On the menu: chili. With extra hot peppers. You can use that last package of frozen tomatoes you blanched and put up back in September. And the kids are bugging you to turn up the heat, please, because brrrrr.
Feel better now?
As hard as it may be to believe after daring to step outside today, winter will be back. Honest. And the folks at the state's highway department are getting ready for it. Or at least more ready for it than they were last year.
Call last winter a . . . Learning Opportunity for our highway people. Who can forget when whole sections of the interstate were shut down for days at a time, and folks were left to sit in their cars and trucks waiting for the ice to melt--or just to be rescued?
We know one fellow who was wondering where all the salt trucks were--while sliding down a hill and straight through a red light in North Little Rock. Snow and ice aren't just inconveniences. They can be downright dangerous.
This summer the Arkansas Highway Commission okayed a budget that included $18 million to pay for 200 new jobs. Plus more equipment and vehicles. According to the state's Highway and Transportation Department, six new belly-plow trucks--at more than $180,000 a pop--are now stationed in Central Arkansas, and can be dispatched to wherever they're needed. With another six to be delivered by 2016.
"We have not stopped thinking about winter weather since the season ended," said Danny Straessle, a PR type for the Highway and Transportation Department. "There were definitely a lot of lessons learned in last winter's event." (Note: Winter Event is how weather people say Snow Storm.) We should certainly hope so. Because on Wednesday, the new Farmer's Almanac came out. Its prediction for the coming winter:
Super-cold in the eastern two-thirds of the country. Which includes Arkansas.
Time to start thinking about parkas, earmuffs and gloves.
There. Feel better now?
Editorial on 08/23/2014