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The Role of Risk in Winter Maintenance. Jan Ölander , Mark DeVries , Wilf Nixon, . What sort of risks do we have to deal with How best might we deal with them Intended to be a conversation and sharing of experiences. Outline.
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The Role of Risk in Winter Maintenance Jan Ölander, Mark DeVries, WilfNixon, APWA Iowa Spring Meeting
What sort of risks do we have to deal with • How best might we deal with them • Intended to be a conversation and sharing of experiences Outline APWA Iowa Spring Meeting
Fast Facts: - MDOT has used more than 440,000 tons of salt so far this winter, about 80 percent more than this time last year. - MDOT is expecting to use more than 600,000 tons of salt this winter. - MDOT expects to exceed its $88 million winter budget by $40 million. Salt supplies holding up, but winter costs are eating into summer maintenance budgets Winter Storm Pax Update for South: Power Slowly Returning to Thousands in Georgia, N.C. and S.C. The Daily Show pounds Atlanta with fresh snark storm Jon Stewart on Atlanta's "ice age doomsday zombie apocalypse" What a Winter! APWA Iowa Spring Meeting
Risk in the sense of uncertain information that is pretty critical for us • Think weather forecasts (that might not be so good) • Risk in the sense of people having crashes during winter conditions • The end result is they may sue our organization The Types of Risk APWA Iowa Spring Meeting
Weather forecasts are improving (no, really…) • BUT, they are a long way from perfect, and • They are pretty much guesswork beyond 72 hours ahead • SO, what can we do about this? The Weather Risk APWA Iowa Spring Meeting
Accidents occur under many weather conditions • When winter weather is involved it is critical to have a policy and stick to it • It used to be assumed that agencies in Iowa had immunity to civil suits related to winter crashes • BUT, some evidence that this “landscape” may be changing (Hargrafen case in Muscatine) • Even if you prevail (as happened with Hargrafen) lots of costs and time spent in the process The Accident Risk APWA Iowa Spring Meeting
Thank You! APWA Iowa Spring Meeting