In a show of transparency and forthrightness, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 2 Chief Engineer Deneatra Henderson spent more than 40 minutes during Thursday afternoon’s special-called Christian County Fiscal Court meeting — openly addressing Judge-Executive Jerry Gilliam and magistrates about all of the social media rumors, concerns and realities of the road conditions in, and around, Hopkinsville.
She and many others in her office are well aware that, even now, roads in every surrounding county “look better” than Christian’s do.
But, according to her, it hasn’t been for a lack of effort, planning, funding or some other presumption.
A series of events, instead, truly snowballed into what everyone is observing now, which still includes some treacherous conditions on major thoroughfares like Pembroke Road, several busy county and state roads that seem impassable to the average driver, and some general perception of slow preparations and reactions to the weather.
Henderson admitted that a rapidly-changing forecast affected their pre-treatment schedule across the district — which includes 11 counties, and none bigger than Christian.
Early rain, Henderson said, washed away brine and forced crews to re-treat the roads — with many getting twice the treatment — but a later snow-sleet mixture created heavily-impacted and frozen precipitation, which is much more difficult to plow, especially with unyielding temperatures.
Of District 2’s 350 employees, more than 200 of them run equipment, and offices are manned through a mathematical formula that she frequently overrides to make sure communities have appropriate full-time staffs.
As an example, Henderson noted that Todd County — which is under District 3 jurisdiction and not her purview — has 14 employees, six trucks and more than 440 miles to cover during weather events. Christian County has 27 employees, 18 trucks, more than 1,200 miles of responsibility, and, quite frankly, more than 70,000 residents — many of them eager to shake cabin fever, or unable to call out due to possible work violations.
Two of those 18 trucks, she added, are called “tow plows” — and both were called upon immediately to clear I-24 and I-169: Christian County’s two most important routes.
Unfortunately, both of them were rendered useless in the first 24 hours of the winter storm, immediately putting her crews in an immediate, and serious, deficit.
Calling on other districts to help Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, she added, wasn’t feasible, because they, too, had their own upkeep in a storm that brought some level impact to all 120 Kentucky counties. Only now, she said, could crews pivot from elsewhere to places like Christian and Muhlenberg.
Of Christian County’s remaining 16 trucks, she said eight are double-axle and eight are single-axle, and at the time both of the parent trucks went down, five were already on critical routes, and most everything had to be immediately shifted to I-24 and I-169.
No “C” routes, she said, were addressed on day one, and as of Thursday afternoon, more than 2,000 tons of salt and more than 13,000 gallons of magnesium chloride have been spilled on Christian County roadways, in hopes of breaking up what are now frozen-solid sheets of precipitation.
As for the “stark transitions” being photographed at county lines, Anderson has an idea for that.
Why aren’t blades always down? Why aren’t trucks plowing on their way to other routes? Henderson had answers for that, too, and it is chemistry- and geographically-related.
At Gilliam’s suggestion, Henderson said she would welcome any and all stakeholders over the next year to have full discussions on the difference between Christian County’s “A,” “B” and “C” routes, and whether some of those priorities need to shift in the future. She also noted that many of District 2’s employees have been working round-the-clock 14-hour overlapping shifts, some sleeping on air mattresses before being called to duty.
Gilliam, too, plowed over some rumors that have circulated over the last few days, noting that all funding requests of the Christian County Road Department have been met, and sometimes exceeded, in the last few budget cycles, and all county roads “have been plowed” at least once. Furthermore, he said state road officials and county roads officials are “not the same entity,” and operate under different leadership.
A “hot wash” of this event, he added, will include city, county and regional officials — in order to better understand how to avoid this in the future.
After temperatures improved Thursday, this upcoming Friday, Saturday and Sunday once again bring arctic weather to the region.
Kudos from Henderson:
FULL CONVERSATION:
