Pocatello preparing roads for incoming snow storm

With a winter storm barreling towards southeastern Idaho, the City of Pocatello is working to prepare the roads.

With three to four inches expected, the city is ready to move on a moments notice with plows and salt trucks, but some of the precautions they take can unintentionally do some damage to your vehicle.

One of the most common and obvious occurrences is chipped and cracked windshields. With the salt and sand combo, windshields are often struck, sometimes suffering some damage.

“We ask that people can just stay back from the trucks when you’re behind them,” City of Pocatello Deputy Public Works Director Tom Kirkman said. “As they turn on the sanders it can throw…sand and salt and that can damage your windshield or your car.”

Cracked or chipped windshields are common results of this, but according to J&J Auto Body owner, Roy Hall, it’s happening much less frequently.

“The new solution that they use now works actually fairly well, it just makes your car dirty,” Hall said.

And most of the cases with cracking or chipping are due to one thing: not keeping your distance.

“You know if you’re following right on somebody’s tail anything they throw up, you’re gonna get,” Hall said. “If you’re back a ways it’s gonna land before it hits you.”

But since not everyone heeds the warnings, there are times the trucks still have to drop the aggregate, even with cars right behind them.

“If there’s a car following too close but there’s a dangerous situation where they need to put the sand down, they need to put the sand down. Because if they just drive away from that intersection and leave it unsafe, that’s not good for anybody.”

Kirkman recommends that people stay at a safe distance, about 100 feet behind the sanders, in an attempt to avoid these situations.

Pocatello’s street department uses a “clean sand” aggregate, which has a tendency to scatter and bounce when it hits the road. It’s something they do get complaints about but must be done to keep people safe.

“It’s an evolving process with when these storms come in,” Kirkman said. “You just have to be willing to adapt to and not get stuck on one thing…The weather is very difficult, it changes quickly. So that’s where we need to adapt and change our plans as we need to.”