Staff photo by Fritz Busch Brown County Highway Dept. snow plow drivers from left, Nick Breu, Bryan Peterson, Brent Fiemeyer, and Chad Classen pose in front of a double-axle plow truck, motor grader and a shed full of salt and sand.

NEW ULM — There’s no snow to speak of in the weather forecast, but Brown County Highway Department maintenance men who double as snow plow jockeys know its coming and they’re ready to clear roads of snow.

“If it snows, it better really snow. Not just two inches. I want to use the v-plow. I get a rush (of adrenaline from it), ” said Chad Classen.

Nick Breu said v-plows are used for deep snow.

He talked some of the challenges of snow plowing and what he appreciates from motorists on snowy roads.

“The biggest thing is driver respect. Give us distance and time to get snow removal done,” said Breu.

“We start at 5 a.m. Sometimes it takes hours to do our route. We need time to get it done safely,” he added.

The snow plow drivers say they love the outdoors, deer hunting and ice fishing.

Brown County Highway Engineer Wayne Stevens said sheds behind the highway department office contain about 900 pounds of salt and 2,700 pounds of sand for their 3:1 sand/salt mixture used on county roads.

Salt prices are forecast to increase in 2024. The National Weather Service forecasts above average temperatures in much of 2024 and average snowfall in Minnesota.

“We’re all full of salt, sand and salt/sand mixture. It won’t get us through the winter, but it’s a good start,” Stevens said.

He said salt costs $110 a ton, sand $4 a ton this year, a little higher than last year.

When they aren’t plowing snow, the snow plow truck and grader drivers do maintenance on their vehicle fleet that includes 13 single axle trucks, eight dual-axle dump trucks, one single-axle dump truck and 14 motor graders with blades.

“We normally spend $500,000 to $600,000 a year on snow removal. We’re going to get a late start on it this season that could save us about 10-20%, ($50,000 or more), but that’s a ball park number. We’ll see what January and February brings. It may make up for it,” Stevens added.

“I got stuck in a big snowdrift last winter on CR 10, near Steffl hill, south of the Minnesota River,” said Classen. “I like being out there when everybody is stuck everywhere and we’re the savior.”

Drivers said snowplowing challenges include plowing when the snow is so deep, they can’t see anything else above the snow.

“When you get to a road without tracks or powerline poles on it, it’s hard,” said Bryan Peterson.

Classen has a vast collection of heavy snowfall photos in his desk. Photos on the wall near his nesk show large snow tunnels and county highway department snowplow trucks, graders and snowblowers cutting paths through large snowdrifts. New Ulm Daily Journal photos of heavy snow date back as far as the St. Patrick’s Day blizzard of 1965.

“I was just a kid then, but I remember how fun it was sliding and playing on the snowdrifts. I’ve got a whole file of photos of vehicles stuck in the snow,” said Classen.

“I remember the winter of 1996-97 when highway department employees worked for 45 straight days,” Stevens said.

Snowdrift photos in more recent years depicted vehicles stuck in huge drifts in CR 28 near Morgan and river flooding in and around New Ulm.

A newspaper photo from decades ago showed a snowdrift as high as a Springfield motel sign.

There are no state laws that prohibit motorists from passing snowplows. However, it can be very dangerous to pass a plow. Snowplows have wing plows that can be on the left or right side of the truck and can extend from two to ten feet beyond the width of the truck.

It can be difficult to see the wing if there is a snow cloud. Most crashes involving snowplows happen when a snowplow is rear-ended or hit when being passed.

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