What It’s Like Being A Snow Plow Driver During A Winter Storm

Inside the garage there are dozens of plows.

My dad’s plow. The number on top is an indicator about what shop the plow is from. The 44 numbers are from the Plymouth shop.

The salt pile. We were loaded with 15 tons of salt. Although my dad didn’t do any salting, the weight is necessary for helping the plow keep traction.

This joystick controls the side wing. It’s like second nature for him to move it up or down when the road can’t accommodate the side wing.

The traffic is traveling eastbound towards Minneapolis/St. Paul. If they didn’t plan for the snow, I’m guessing the snow added maybe 2 hours to their commute. Drag.

While plowing during morning rush hour is difficult, he finds ways to make it work. Here he is plowing the left shoulder.

It’s hard to see but there’s a plow up ahead that he’s about to team up with to gang plow. You can see the lights from the other plow.

Setting up to start the gang plow, the other driver moves all the way to the left shoulder.

My dad plows just behind him to move the snow from the other plow plus the snow in his lane.

My dad says this is very common and very dangerous. This car is trying to get past the gang plow by going in between them. I was hoping they’d spin out…

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They made it… but really, nobody should risk it.

While gang plowing, there’s quite a bit of open road ahead… behind, not to much.

Here you can see the backup from the plows. I’m sure it pissed off a good share of the drivers. My dad says it’s a thankless job and that he get’s saluted a lot… with one finger.

This car got stuck between us, too.

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But eventually made it around. Again… it’s so dangerous.

This area is congested anyway but hopefully people realize how necessary this little inconvenience is.

Here’s my dad leading the gang plow. It’s not ideal to only have two plows with a three or four lane highway but they do the best with what they have.