Winter is in the air; the Physical Plant Office workers are busy preparing for the coming weather.

“When the campus police call me saying that somewhere is getting slippery, that’s when the work will begin,” Campus Grounds Supervisor David Finney said.

“Campus Police is constantly on the job to assess winter hazards and their primary job is to alert Physical Plant if conditions begin to deteriorate with snow, ice and slippery conditions.”

Last year Physical Plant Officers bought 300 tons road salt just like this year through a state program from Pennsylvania.

It was shipped in bulk and filled a storage building in physical plant office. Pitt-Oakland bought 10 times that much since it is a much larger campus.

The salts were used for sidewalk, steps and entrances for building.

In the fall, the basic task involves collecting leaves, mowing and taking care of the sports fields. Officers are to add lime and seed fields after sports are finished. They also fertilize the grass on campus, using 160 bags of fertilizer each year.

To prepare the campus for winter weather, the Physical Plant officers are to distribute the Ice-melter supplies to all Academic Buildings, order Ice-melter supplies for campus side-walks and step and remove the benches from campus in order to make way for the plows.

“We have three pick-up trucks and two dump-trucks that we change over to plow trucks for winter. And, also, we have four tractors that we change from mowers to plowing and salt spreader tractors for use on campus sidewalks and steps.”

“The plowing process will take up for likely four months,” said Finney.

He said the officers need to plow the steps, entrances and sidewalks almost everyday during the whole winter.