FGGAM RECEIVED THIS NEWS RELEASE LAST NIGHT:
NMDOT Continues Vital Work of Clearing Roads
Santa Fe, NM – The New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) continues the vital work of clearing roads throughout the state. Crews have been out working 24-hours a day since the beginning of the storm, working to keep roads safe for the traveling public and to reopen roads in the areas most heavily impacted by the storm. Available equipment is maximized so it is kept on the road and staffed, even if labor must be brought in from other areas. Below is an estimate of what has been accomplished by crews up to this point.
To date, NMDOT has deployed approximately 78 crews since Saturday. This is approximately 625 heavy equipment operators alternating 12-hour shifts. Not including trucks and support vehicles, about 450 pieces of heavy equipment have been used throughout the storm, including:
- 380 combination snowplows/salt spreader tandem axel 5 and 10 yard dump trucks;
- 30 road graders;
- 45 loaders;
- 2 bulldozers; and
- 3 sno-go’s (drivable snow blowers)
Approximately 6,000 yards, or 7,250 tons of salt and cider mix has been applied to roads throughout the state.
During the first 2 months of the 2015-2016 winter season, crews have cleared about 433,000 pass miles of snow and ice. For the entirety of the 2014-2015 season, NMDOT crews cleared 1.3 million pass miles of snow and ice, which is about 53 trips around the world. A pass mile equals each pass made per lane of traffic by equipment, per road being cleared.