Old Man Winter takes a toll on the area

    The weather forecast for Washington is 5 inches of snow Wednesday night and a few more inches Thursday. Wind gusts of 30 mph on Thursday are expected to produce a wind chill of minus 10. City and county officials have been battling freezing temperatures for a month and still have a few months to go before they can declare victory.

    Greg Johnson, the acting city maintenance and construction superintendent for Washington, said city crews have had to repair a few water main breaks this winter.

    ?When we dig up the mains, we have to use a concrete breaker to get through the frozen ground,? said Johnson. ?We normally have to dig 4 to 6 feet in the ground, and that is difficult when the ground is hard. When we have an early snow, like we did this year, that insulates the ground from deep freezing.?

    Johnson said his crew normally spends four to six hours fixing a damaged pipe, but that depends on the type of break in the pipe. He said that he has spent as many as 12 hours repairing a broken main.

    ?We won?t spend as much time if we just have to fix a crack in the pipe as we do when we have to replace a 20-foot section of pipe that has deteriorated,? said Johnson. ?When you have to repair that much piping, you have to do a lot of excavating. After that, you have to compact the dirt tightly on top of the pipe, especially when it?s below a street and you have to go back and repair the road.?

    Repairing water mains in the winter is no fun, but Johnson remarked that someone has to do it.

    ?It is a cold, muddy and nasty job,? said Johnson. ?It is not a job any of us enjoy, but it has to be done. People expect clean water to come out of their tap when they turn on the faucet.?

    Regarding the condition of city streets, Johnson said there is no hope of melting the ice when temperatures dip below zero as they have this week.

    ?We put sand on the road to provide people with a little more traction, but you?re not going to melt the ice in this weather,? said Johnson. ?We?re just hoping for an early spring to help us out.?

    Shelly Bontrager, a registered nurse who works at the Washington County Hospital and Clinics, said she has seen a recent increase in the number of fall victims and people suffering from back problems as a result of moving snow.

    ?Most of the people who have fallen on the ice are elderly, but we have treated a few young people, too,? said Bontrager. ?Luckily, I don?t think we?ve had any cases of frostbite this winter. We did see an increase in respiratory problems last fall.?

    Pat Huber, the nurse manager at the Washington County Hospital and Clinics, said cold temperatures force people to congregate indoors, which is a contributing factor to the spread of influenza. In the past few weeks, Huber has also seen more cases of a disease called gastroenteritis, which causes vomiting and diarrhea,    

    Washington County Sheriff Jerry Dunbar said freezing temperatures can make traffic control on Highway 218 very unpleasant.

For the full article, see the Jan. 6 print edition of the Washington Evening Journal.