PLYMOUTH, Minn. — When Hamel Building Center manager Charlie Snorek saw Monday's forecast for measurable snow, he made a bold decision at his Plymouth hardware store.
"We came in this morning, pulled out the rakes and put in the snow shovels. Literally," Snorek said. "We've sold probably a half-dozen of them already today. People are coming in and thinking ahead."
Light snow on the eve of Halloween is not unusual, nor is it a particular challenge for public works departments in the Twin Cities metro area.
But it's a small preview of things to come this winter.
"If we look at the calendar right now, we're right around where we should be," said Andy Kraemer, who manages road operations for Hennepin County. "Once the big snow hits and finally sticks, we're like, 'lets go!' But right now, it's just kind of a lot of prep."
Kraemer said Hennepin County has spent the last month getting plow trucks ready for the winter. On Monday, he gave KARE 11 a tour of the public works facility, where maintenance workers were doing some fine-tuning of a "MACK" plow.
Hennepin County has 80 plow trucks in its fleet, ideally with a ratio of one operator per truck. Kraemer said the county has made job offers to three new plow operators, which would bring them to full staff.
"It hasn't been that way for the last four years," Kraemer said. "It'd be nice to get back to that."
Staffing varies from agency to agency. In St. Paul, for example, a public works spokesperson said they're still hiring for 10 open street positions heading into the winter. The city just held a community engagement summit a few weeks ago to discuss winter preparations.
MnDOT, meanwhile, has 1,600 plow operators for 800 routes statewide, but a spokesperson for the department said they're always looking to hire more workers.
In Hennepin County, staff will spend Tuesday doing a "dry" run of the county's 64 plow routes, so that they're as familiar as possible with the roads before the first true winter storm.
"You're always prepping for something," Kraemer said. "Once the snow finally hits, it's kind of a relief. We can finally be done with ditch digging and whatever else we're doing and just focus on plowing."
Watch more local news:
Watch the latest local news from the Twin Cities and across Minnesota in our YouTube playlist:
WATCH MORE ON KARE 11+
Download the free KARE 11+ app for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV and other smart TV platforms to watch more from KARE 11 anytime! The KARE 11+ app includes live streams of all of KARE 11's newscasts. You'll also find on-demand replays of newscasts; the latest from KARE 11 Investigates, Breaking the News and the Land of 10,000 Stories; exclusive programs like Verify and HeartThreads; and Minnesota sports talk from our partners at Locked On Minnesota.
- Add KARE 11+ on Roku here or by searching for KARE 11 in the Roku Channel Store.
- Add KARE 11+ on Fire TV here or by searching for KARE 11 in the Amazon App Store.
- Learn more about the KARE 11+ app for Apple TV in the Apple App Store.
- Learn more about KARE 11+ here.