Thursday, May 2, 2024
Summer might be fun if you can spend it around a cool, azure swimming pool, but it’s no picnic for those who have to labor in the searing Texas heat.
The county’s Road Operations Department has protocols in place to help protect crews as they do maintenance on county roads even on the hottest days of the year.
Road Ops Director Donald Linney said that after Memorial Day, the 35-member department moved to a 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. schedule. The department will move back to its normal schedule of 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. after Labor Day in September, he said.
“Paving and large pavement repairs usually wrap up around noon to 1 p.m. during extreme hot days,” Linney wrote in an email to the Hood County News.
He said that “regular pothole repairs” are done throughout the day since those repairs do not require crew members to be on location for extended periods.
“Pavement temperatures in the afternoon during this time of year hover around 145+ degrees,” Linney noted.
The Road Ops director said that water is always on hand at any work site, with a majority of employees also carrying personal water containers.
“Lastly,” Linney wrote, “the guys keep a watch on each other during these times because of how quickly heat exhaustion can happen.”
