After last year’s record snowfalls, Ball State has not added much to their snow equipment.
Associate Vice President of Facilities Planning and Management Kevin Kenyon said the only thing Ball State has added is a greater inventory of road salt, because of an industry shortage.
“If you prepare for the worst case, it’s going to cost you a lot that you may never get a benefit from… This [current weather] is far from the worst case,” Kenyon said.
Ball State prepares for snow by spraying the streets with a solution that discourages the snow from bonding to the pavement. Kenyon said they spray the solution on days when snow is on the forecast, such as Tuesday. Kenyon said his office is working on increasing inventory space to store more salt.
As far as preparing for another snowpocalypse, one plow company isn't planning on having the same experience the city had this time last year.
"Last year was a rather abnormal year for us as far as the amount of snowfall, temperatures even too, so we really didn’t use last year to try to gauge our estimates this year," said Jeff Catron, owner of Bad Boys Snow Plowing. "We try to look over a longer time frame, look back past a couple years and look and see what the average for our area is long term versus what it has been the past roughly three to four years, three to five years."
The Muncie Department of Public Works did not answer phone calls from the Daily News.
Despite the heavy snow and below zero temperatures last year, the MITS bus also kept transporting people through the Meijer and Wal-Mart routes.
"We did not close at all last year, we ran every route. The day that we had the heaviest snowfall we actually transported somewhere around 1,600 people."
The company bought an additional plow truck this year to help clear routes.
The National Weather Service has upheld its wind chill warning until 10 a.m. Reports predict icy roads and wind chill from 20 to 30 degrees below zero.
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