Douglas County Public Works supervisor Don Towns grabs a handful of salt from a 1,200-ton pile used to melt ice on local roads. “That’s gold right there,” he says. “That’s what keeps everybody happy and keeps Grandma and Grandpa coming to town for Christmas.”

Dreaming of a white Christmas?

Spare a thought for folks like Don Towns, 46, road and bridge supervisor for Douglas County’s public works department. Christmas snow means interrupted family celebrations and round-the-clock shifts for Towns and his crew.

“During snowfalls and ice storms, our goal is to keep the public moving and ensure the roads are kept safe and clear for everyone,” he says.

Towns says he didn’t like snow growing up near Garden City, where he often spent time on his grandfather’s Holcomb farm.

“When it snows in southwest Kansas, it really snows,” he says.

“It’s cold, hard to get around, and everything takes forever to do. Douglas County snow is mild by comparison.”

Towns graduated from Garden City High School in 1981. He got his Class A driver’s license and did various heavy-vehicle driving jobs before joining the Douglas County work force in 1985. He’s been a supervisor for 12 years and is an important part of the winter weather teams that keep the county roads safe.

Snow and ice preparation starts in early October with a snow and ice-training day for staff. One crew is assigned to each of the 10 main county routes.

“This helps us know exactly where crews are, where they need to be, and if they run into trouble, we know where to locate them when conditions are hazardous,” Towns says.

He vividly remembers a hairy experience in 1998.

“I was training a plow operator on Stull Road when a blinding snowstorm blew in,” he recalls. “I was hanging out the passenger window, holding on for dear life, looking for the reflections off the roadside signs to guide the driver.”

He says modern plows are all computerized, more efficient and easier to handle in spite of their 58,000-pound weight.

“They can be turned both ways and rotated from right to left, and the computer takes away a lot of the guesswork,” he explains.

“It’s so much easier to clear intersections with them.”

Trucks, plows and sanders are constantly checked, and mechanics are available 24 hours a day. Towns is responsible for ensuring plow operators put down the right amount of materials, and all safety precautions are in place. He says he prefers snow storms to ice storms any day.

Over Thanksgiving and Christmas he and five team members share rotational duty. If it snows, everyone is called in. He admits it’s hard on families when this happens.

“We’ve got a great group of dedicated guys who take great pride in their work,” he says.

“We all know what we signed up for. We’re proud to serve the community, although most of our work may be behind the scenes and go unnoticed. We know if we don’t do our work well, the emergency services can’t do what they need to do.”

Towns says his childhood attitude to snow has changed.

“When my son Zachary (now college-age) was a kid, I took him tubing at Ottawa viaduct, and he loved it,” Towns says, smiling.

“Through him I’ve learned to have fun in the snow, too, but only when I’m off-duty.”