Nola Sizemore

Staff Writer

Working hard to keep county roads cleared during inclement weather, the Harlan County Road Department keeps a crew of 16 on the job when needed.

“We’ve used about 400 tons of road salt already during this winter season,” said Harlan County Road Supervisor Marvin Goins. “We’ve got about 400 more tons on hand if needed. We can get salt in about two or three days after we order it.”

Salt for the county is delivered out of Lexington by the Detroit Salt Company. Goins said the county is paying $85 per ton delivered for the salt, which was the low bid.

“If the weather lets up from here on out I think we’ve got enough salt to do us for the rest of the winter season,” said Goins.

He said when inclement weather occurs, hills and steep roadways are the county’s first priority. He said his crews then proceed to work on the flat roadways.

“We have a lot of hills in our county and they become very dangerous quickly,” said Goins. “The county roads are the secondary roads in the county with main roads like U.S. 421 and U.S. 119, along with KY 97, 72 and 38 being state roadways and they take care of them.”

Goins commended his employees on the job they have done thus far during ice, snow and sleet type weather.

“They have done a tremendous job,” said Goins. “We’ve not been behind any. My crew comes out any time I call, day or night. I’ve not had the first complaint from anyone. I think they do a great job. We have 16 guys who are salting and scrapping roadways, with a fleet of 17 vehicles, which are pickup trucks with a salt box and plow on them.”

Goins said the public can be assured as soon as his crews can get out — “they will be.”

“I’d like to be able to tell you everybody is going to be first, but it don’t work that way,” said Goins. “We try to get the roads cleared in a timely fashion — getting the worse places first and then work from there. If we need them we have chains for our trucks. They are all four-wheel drive vehicles and they usually go pretty good.”

Reach Nola Sizemore at 606-573-4510 or at nsizemore@civitasmedia.com