PORT ANGELES – A bigger budget and improved communication with power companies has the state Department of Transportation better prepared for winter, said a department official.
The Olympic Region’s snow and ice budget for 2007-2009 is $6,179,000, up from $5.5 million in 2005-2007.
Bill Riley, maintenance and operations superintendent for DOT’s Port Angeles office, said there’s also better communication with other agencies than in past years.
“We’re working hard to establish contacts with our power companies because we can’t clear roads with downed power lines across them,” he said.
In the past, power companies and DOT never knew what the other was doing, he said.
This year, DOT has had some time to prepare for winter weather.
Last year’s inclement weather began with flooding in the first week of November, a windstorm the next week and snow on Thanksgiving weekend followed by freezing temperatures, then hurricane-force winds in mid-December.
Representatives of public works departments, utilities, transit agencies and law enforcement gathered at DOT’s Port Angeles office last week to hear the department’s 2007-2008 winter snow and ice plan for Clallam and Jefferson counties.
