CRANBERRY TWP — Winter may not be over just yet, but for some municipal road crews across Butler County what’s already passed of the snowy season has been anywhere between average and grueling.

Storms and prolonged cold temperatures, compounded by outside factors such as supply chain issues and staffing shortages, made the winter of 2021-22 a challenging time for more than a few local departments.

Dave Meeder, director of public works in Butler Township, said he thought this winter was “a little bit worse” than the past few years, an opinion echoed by Cranberry Township public works director Kelly Maurer. Both Meeder and Maurer, however, said it was within expectations for a normal winter season.

More snow sticking to the ground and colder temperatures forced Butler Township to use more resources than usual to keep up with roadway maintenance.

“When it stays cold for longer periods, your salt doesn’t work as effectively,” Meeder said. “If we get snow and it's in the upper 20s or so, then your salt works really well and cuts through that snow, but as the temperature is dropping into the low 20s and down into the teens, your salt usage goes way up because it takes more product to achieve the same result.”

Another issue road crews encountered was temperature fluctuation. Freeze-thaw cycles, according to PennDOT spokeswoman Christina Gibbs, are the top cause of potholes.

“When the ground is wet below a roadway surface and we get freezing temperatures, the water freezes and expands the ground, pushing the pavement up,” Gibbs said. “Then, when warmer weather rolls in, the water melts, leaving a gap between the pavement and the ground below it. When a vehicle drives over this cavity, the pavement surface cracks, falls into the hollow space, and creates a pothole.”

Maurer said the county has seen a higher-than-typical level of rainfall during this winter, contributing to more potential roadway damage.

"We did get 5 inches of rain in February. Two-and-a-half inches is normal, so we did have a good bit of rain, and then cold temperatures,” she said. “(It was) a little worse than normal just from all that rain we got in February and then the disparity in temperatures.”

Shortages and supply chain problems have made winter even more of a “costly time” than ever, Meeder added.

“Pretty much everything across the board, like our cutting edges for the snow plows, the replaceable edges that wear, have gone up in price,” he said. “Basic parts, if you have an electrical issue, you could have a truck down for potentially weeks on trying to get a part. It’s all because of the shortages. Anything electrical part-wise for vehicles is harder to come by than it used to be.”

Some municipalities had a less-difficult time with supplies. Cranberry, for instance, gets its salt from Ohio; Maurer said the close-to-home sourcing kept costs at a reasonable level.

“Our salt is done by a cooperative agreement and it was $20 less a ton than last year, so the price actually went down,” Maurer said. “The issues we are having is with the fleet, any vehicles we're ordering, and then with pipes and fittings. That seems to be the biggest issue with the supply chain.”

In Middlesex Township, director of public works Heath Singer has faced pricing and shortage issues, but said this winter hasn’t been particularly unusual.

“Salt was cheaper this year than it was last year,” he said. “Fuel right now is going up tremendously, but that has nothing to do with winter.”

While some municipalities have seen issues with obtaining supplies, other communities have had some problems keeping trucks on the road.

In Mercer Township in northern Butler County, Road Master Pete Treese said the road crews have been able to keep up.

“The early part of it, up to January, was no problem,” Treese said. “After that, the bottom fell out of it, and we had snow quite often, but we had no trouble handling it.”

Treese said some past winters have brought problems in the form of snow drifts that blow across roads, but that issue wasn’t present this year.

“We didn’t have any kind of problems, thank goodness,” he said. “We’re small in comparison to some of the townships. It’s a little simpler for us than the big boys.”

The Middlesex Township road crew went out on the roads more than 52 times in the 2020-21 season, Singer said, but so far this year the crew only deployed 25 times.

“We had a lot of people comment on Facebook saying that the roads are better this year than they had been in years,” he added.

A larger issue for Middlesex is staffing numbers. The department usually staffs five trucks, but two workers being away on disability leave brought the number down to three.

“We’ve had quite a few (times) this past year that we were here 25 to 30 hours straight,” Singer said. “We usually have enough people that we don’t have to, but with us being shorthanded this year, it took a lot longer to get everything done. I can’t say we were in a truck 25 hours straight, we would take a break here and there and get a bite to eat, but we were here, present, at the township building, for 25 hours.”

Both Cranberry and the state’s transportation department have had fewer issues with staffing. Maurer said because Cranberry’s winter road crews are permanent, full-time employees, the township doesn’t have the same issues with recruiting and retaining workers. PennDOT’s Gibbs said the state department has seen “fairly level” staffing numbers.

As the temperatures heat up and the sun warms the road, some municipalities will turn their focus from keeping roads clear of ice and snow to fixing whatever damage Old Man Winter caused to the roads.

Gibbs said PennDOT makes temporary repairs to roads when weather permits during winter. In Cranberry, Maurer said, road crews go out daily to check road conditions and fix damage to roads when possible.

“Whenever we see it in the tire line, where the pressure of cars are hitting, we repair those as needed,” Maurer said.

Crews use “cold patch” — a mixture of asphalt, soap, water and fine stones — to fill holes during winter, according to Gibbs. The soap and water keep the mixture flexible, and the cold patch hardens as the liquid evaporates.

“Once asphalt plants open in the spring, we will be able to go back and use hot mix for more-permanent repairs, if needed,” Gibbs said. “Cold patch jobs are able to last more than two years in some situations.”

Maurer said with temperatures rising, more effort can be put into evaluating road conditions — she added the paving schedule is made every year based on real conditions, rather than on a rotating schedule — and implementing whatever repairs need to be made.

"Obviously, in March, we still could have some snow, and we have the plows on the trucks,” Maurer said. “But we're hopeful our non-snow days are ahead of us."

In addition to paving certain roads, Maurer said the township aims to crack seal and sealcoat roads quadrennially, working in quadrants through Cranberry. Roads are crack sealed and sealcoated in that order, she added.

To report roadway damage along any of the 737 miles of state highway in Butler County, Gibbs said motorists can call 1-800-FIX-ROAD or visit the PennDOT website. In Cranberry, Maurer said, drivers can call the township or report on the township website damage to the 139 miles of local roads.