Road Report, Dec. 23rd, 8:30pm

Hello, SLE.. As mentioned previously, and I’m sure you all can see, the weather is not what we normally experience in December. Rather than having an ice pack on our roads covered in snow, we’ve had a mid-winter spring break up when the roads come apart from melting snow, rain and warm temps.

This obviously complicates road maintenance.

I’ve heard from some of you with specific questions and I reply to every email that requires a direct response. Others have sent feedback through the Google document, which is also appreciated (except for the repetitive, harassing messages from one homeowner, which have been reported). The more productive feedback has been around when we will be grading next.

I do not like to specify road work days in advance because we are at the mercy of changing weather and often have to reschedule as we have a few times this month.

For example, we were originally booked for grading on Tues, Dec 16th. But it was still too wet, so we pushed it to Fri, Dec 19th, which was still too wet from more rain and snow. If you grade when it’s too wet, everything just turns to mud.

We finally had better conditions on Sun, 12/21, so the crew graded as many in-need areas as possible. We then skipped yesterday (Mon, 12/22) due to additional rain and snow, and were finally able to move forward with our rock project and more grading today, Tues, 12/23.

Two trucks brought in 16 loads today and the crew graded as many in-need spots as they could on CDA, St. Joe, South Kelso, South Hayden, and both exits to Treeport. I was hoping to hit Liberty also. However, that will need to wait for the next time we can do it when the weather is with us again, as it was today.

No day is perfect.

We may have a sunny day but that doesn’t mean conditions are right otherwise. The ground can still be too wet from recent rain and snow, for example. Suffice to say we book our crew and rock projects, grading, etc. on the best days possible given all of the factors to be considered, and that’s often a moving target.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

In addition to road work, our crew picked up the new grader chains and blades to repair the one plow truck, which was damaged plowing slush after heavy snow was followed by rain and warm temps earlier this month. If we don’t have another opportunity for rock before more snow comes, the new chains will be going on the grader to clear slush from there until we can get more snow coverage.

So, please know we are busy behind the scenes, even if you don’t see us out on the road. We are tracking changing weather, planning work and rock projects, and vehicle repairs and maintenance. I am communicating with the road crew and board as well as seeing projects through budget approvals.

I update the community and regularly but only once work is complete.

I’d prefer not to tell you what we have planned because that can change. I’d rather ask for your patience and consideration of unusual weather conditions that can seen by all, and then share results with you when they are available to share. I hope this works for you all.

Again, if you need to reach me, you can email roads@spiritlakeeast.org. If your message necessitates a direct response, I’ll email you back and/or address the results in my updates to all, if needed.

Please drive safe out there and Merry Christmas. Jon Dore, SLE Road Chair