If you thought clearing off your driveway and sidewalk after the recent blizzard was tough, imagine having to clear the runways and approaches for giant military planes. Master Sergeant Brett Robinson at the 185th Air Refueling Wing in Sioux City says its a job that takes a lot of caution.
“Visibility gets pretty bad out here. Even on the ramp we tend to just go and when we can’t see we just stop because you never know where a plane is going to be at,” he says, “right in front of you, you never know. You don’t ever want to just have something sneak up on you.” The airmen need to move the snow as soon as possible to keep the Air Wing ready for 24-hour operations.
Robinson says the recent heavy snow took more planning to get things clear. “Normally we can plow the whole flight line and to one side and take care of a one blower, but this last snow it was so so heavy that we actually had to blow it halfway and then blow it again just to get it off the flight line out of the way,” Robinson says. You probably have large banks of snow on the edge of your driveway, but that’s not an option when you are clearing the way for the KC-135 tankers that fly out of Sioux City. “We can’t pile it up on the sides because of the wing tip clearance,” Robinson says. “We want to get it as far away as possible because we could get three or four more of these snows, and if we get that then we’re going to start running issues with snow piling up on the edges.”
The Air Guard does have some two million dollars worth of snow-moving equipment that includes blowers, brooms and plows.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)