Lack Of Snow Keeps Plow Operators Out Of Work

When we get dumped on by a snowstorm, we often count on snow plows to rescue us. That’s not the case this year.

Now the folks driving those plows might need rescuing.

Walk through the halls of All American Yards in Idaho Falls, and they are completely empty.

The landscaping business depends on snow removal during the winter months. But when there’s no snow, office manager Susan Holt has bad news for the employees.

“They don’t come in,” Holt simply said.

Fortunately for All American, there’s still some work to be done.

“We’ve had a few smaller jobs,” Holt said. “We had the Ammon Town Center. We trimmed the trees and stuff we did all of those … We did have some people that didn’t shut off their sprinkler systems, and we’ve had a couple of calls on that … And the owner owns apartments and sometimes he has [our employees] just go over there and do things over there, ’cause he tries to keep all of them working.”

Still, with 40 to 50 people on staff, it’s not that easy to keep everyone busy.

“Some of them save money from the summer. Others have other jobs,” Holt said. “They work at part-time at restaurants, or the potatoes or whatever. Others, like I said, plan ahead or look for work.”

Holt said that other employees receive unemployment benefits during the slow winter months.

But winter’s not over yet. At the end of our visit to the All American Yards office, it started to snow.

“I’m just hoping [the employees] have warm clothes!” Holt joked.