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Road crews prepare for winter amid pandemic

COVID impacts road crews

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The chance of snow this month has West Michigan road crews preparing for the winter.

"We've been very fortunate so far, I think normally we get 8 to 10 inches and we've had less than an inch," says Jerry Byrne with the Kent County Road Commission.

Like everyone else, local road commissions and their plow truck drivers have been impacted by COVID.

"We're not putting them together in trucks, so the motorists may see a crew with twice as many trucks as we normally do because we're not putting 2 in a truck, everybody is driving an individual truck and cleaning and sanitizing that truck before and after," says Byrne.

COVID is also creating staffing challenges that could cause delays on when some secondary streets get plowed.

"It certainly could reduce and will reduce the level of service in residential streets and low volume roads if we have to ship resources to another jurisdiction," says Byrne.

You may also see plow trucks from a different county in your neighborhood.

"Just understand that we're in this together, and we're not just going to play the county boundary lines so everyone needs some patience," says Byrne.

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