On Thu, 06 Feb 2014 21:47:53 -0500, woodchucker
wrote:

On 2/6/2014 8:45 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 6 Feb 2014 19:36:18 -0500, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:

wrote:
On Thu, 6 Feb 2014 08:37:52 -0500, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:

wrote:


They have thirty plows (or something like that) for a city of 4.5M.
As far as not knowing how to use it, well, if you only have a need
for it once every three to ten years, it's hard to remember (and
keep the equipment up).

The roads were ice, quite quickly. Salt would have fixed everything
but THERE IS NO SALT AND NOTHING TO SPREAD IT WITH.


Then there's also the point that salt is only effective down to
about 20F and is completely ineffective at 10F by itself. Unless
they stockpile salt mixtures, they're screwed.

That's rarely a problem in Atlanta. ;-)

Salt still provides traction, even at -10F. In Vermont, they'd use
straight salt all Winter. Sand turns to rock with any moisture and
needs to be picked up in the Spring. Salt doesn't.

Northeast regions usually use a salt mixture and not just salt.

Usually but as you point out, salt doesn't work at low temperatures
(doesn't work at all a 0F). If there is any water in the sand the
salt will freeze solid in the salt sheds or on the trucks. Pure salt
is easier to use at these temperatures. No clean up in the Spring is
a bonus.

Salt mixture is not sand and salt.
It's different types of salt.

They talked about using calcium but it's about 4x the cost. AFAIK,
never happened.

Lately they have been using Brine around the NY, NJ area.

I've heard that but brine is just water and salt. Not sure what the
advantage of that when it's too cold for salt to work at all.