Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle
Predictions of wintry weather don’t just mean pants for the last shorts-wearing holdouts, snowball fights on McKeldin Mall and laundry baskets becoming makeshift sleds.
For the University of Maryland’s Landscape Services team, the forecast calls for busy days and nights ahead to clear 23 miles of sidewalks, 13 miles of roads and all the parking lots—essential to keeping the community safe and the university’s facilities open.
Storm prep starts in August; it requires stockpiling tons of ice melt and rock salt and organizing hundreds of employees in Facilities Management and Residential Facilities, plus contractors, in a first responder-like effort, complete with a “command center.”
Maryland Today spoke to Associate Director Bill Monan, who leads snow removal across the 1,300-acre campus, and horticulturist Darrick Davis, who lays aside the pruning shears to head one of five vehicle-mounted “strike teams” when the weather turns hazardous, to learn what it takes to clear snow and ice from the campus.
See the original article from Maryland Today here: https://today.umd.edu/what-it-takes-snow-removal