HAMILTON, Ohio — Plow drivers are working overtime trying to keep roads clear despite breakdowns and piling snow. Even after the snow stopped, plow drivers are concerned about drifting snow and ice covering the roads. 

What You Need To Know

  • Plow drivers have been battling the snow and truck break downs to keep the roads clear 

  • At the Butler County Engineer's Office, there's 16 trucks covering hundreds of miles of county roads 

  • Plow drivers are working in 12-hour shifts to clear the roads and treat them for expected ice 

Countless cars on snow covered road ended up stuck or in a ditch.

“I’ve probably seen eight to ten cars in a ditch, last night and this morning," said Jody Bennett, plow driver for the Butler County Engineer's Office. 

That’s why plow drivers Bennett say they have been working around the clock.

“I’m going to do two back to back 12-hour shifts," said Bennett. 

He’s been clearing Butler County roads. The problem is the snow just kept coming down.

“My roads, just in the last 24 hours, I’ve been over them three or four times, and when we get down there, they look like they haven’t been touched," said Bennett. 

He said they’ll start putting more salt down once the snow stops and if the truck holds up.

“You get icebuild up on the wipers and end up breaking them," said Bennett. 

The non-stop snow sent some of the plow trucks straight to the shop where another crew of mechanics and the operations manager is trying to keep up.

“We’ve got an air chamber out on one of the trucks, we've got a hydraulic tank that broke loose on another truck, we had to take off and go out of here because the simple windshield wipers are breaking off the trucks because of the frozen snow," said Scott Bressler, operations manager for the Butler County Engineer's Office. 

Bressler said they have 16 trucks and hundreds of miles of road to cover and there’s another challenge.

“We have a lot of drifts that will blow and we'll get anywhere from up to a foot to two and a half, three foot of snow piled up on on the road," said Bressler. 

He said that means this storm is going to take time to clean but Bennett says he’s ready for it as long as drivers steer clear.

“When it’s snowing like this, you try to just keep one lane open in each direction, so that’s what we’re doing," said Bennett.

Plow drivers are also concerned about ice under the snow. They say the salt alone does not work as well when the temperature drops below 15 degrees. They'll be using a beet juice mix if that happens, but plow drivers estimate it could take days to clean everything up.