The Snow Plows of Mobile Post #28

Snowplow in Oswego County - this is not nearly what they often get!

       It’s cold out again, in the low 30’s, which is pretty unusual for Mobile, especially in December.  The one thing that Mobile does have in common with Syracuse is the type of cold – damp and bone chilling!    Here it comes off the bay, and there it comes from Lake Ontario.  Either way, aside from the snow, 30 degrees is 30 degrees.  And another thing, a cold house in Alabama is no different than a cold house in New York.  The difference is when you walk outside; you don’t need that heavy winter wardrobe of snow boots, wool socks, mittens, scarves, and multiple coats.

        It was my first winter in Mobile on one of these cold, breezy nights when I had my first experience with the snowplows in Mobile.  To tell that though, it is crucial that Mobilians fully understand the snowplows of Oswego and Onondaga County.  Watching the news here, we see many tractors with plows moving snow, hence the perception that, that is what a snow plow is.  Those are snow plows but typically the kind that are owned by smaller contractors or individuals – or perhaps in states where they barely get snow.

This was either the storm of 66 or 76.  

There are NO hills on the side of the road.  

 That is pure snow folks!

        Oswego and Onondaga County has the best snow plows in the country.  They are huge and, in spite of the large amounts of the snow, do a great job of keeping the roads as clear as possible.    In Oswego County however, where the snowfall often dwarfs Onondaga County, the plows are out in full force and even when it's not safe to drive, it is never long before a plow comes along to provide your best shot at getting where you need to go if you follow right behind it.  The plows are out 24/7.

        A typical sound in the north during the snowy months is the sound of snowplows – much like the sound of the garbage trucks anywhere.  Then you hear the motorized plow lifting up, the hard, cold metal hitting the snow covered pavement as it moves forward, then backwards, over and over, moving the snow.  Some of the large grocery stores and malls allocate parts of their parking lots for the plows to dump the snow.  It has to go somewhere!  As the plow backs up, the typical warning beeps come on, over and over all day and night.  In the city you can hear it blocks away and eventually it is a background sound that you are no longer conscious of.

        It was a cold January night in Mobile and I was laying in bed plotting the holes and gaps I would be filling in the next day to keep the cold air out.  In my exhaustion, I was thinking how glad I was that the cold ‘stopped there!’ meaning that, though it is cold inside, a light to medium coat and scarf are really all that is typically needed.  I was relishing at how glad I was to be in the south as I drifted off to sleep.

        It didn’t take long, however, to hear the plows; the engines that sounded similar to the garbage truck.  In my drifting state, I thought, “Oh, the garbage truck!”  As I slipped further into that dream state – I could hear the snowplows coming out and then the hard metal hitting the pavement.   Over and over for the next couple of hours, I could hear those plows slamming down, plowing the snow, then backing up and doing it again.  The sound went on all night, all the while, me thinking I was in my old bed in Syracuse.

This is Mobile in the Winter

        The next day, I remembered this and laughed it off as a dream, thinking that those sounds were so embedded into my being that I had just dreamed it.    Then that night after drifting off to sleep, the same thing happened; The engine of the trucks, the plows coming out and hitting the pavement, the snow being scooted, the back-up alarm and then the inevitable clanging of metal as the plow is moving or shaking the snow or moving to the next spot.   After several nights of hearing this in my sleep, I made a deal with myself to force myself awake and get to the bottom of it.                                  

        It was about 2:00 a.m. several nights later when I was finally able to force myself awake.  Now Barry our Biologist – who knows everything – is a night owl and I knew that he and Georgia – his girlfriend – would still be up.     I forced myself out of the sleep to ascertain whether this was a flashback or if it was real.   It was real alright!  But why on earth would there be snowplows in Mobile, a place where school gets cancelled if it snows in North Carolina, and one where I haven’t seen a drop since I’ve lived here.  

        I texted Barry our Biologist and asked what that noise was and shared that it sounded like snowplows.  He was amused as he explained that what I was hearing was the shipping containers at the port on the bay, about a mile and a half away.  The shipping containers are what we commonly see on the back of 18-wheelers or the cargo boxes on trains, only they are coming off the ships to trucks and trains or being loaded on the ships from trucks or trains.  The engines I heard are the equipment that lift the containers.  Apparently this gets done mostly in the middle of the night.  The sound of the plow hitting the pavement was actually the containers being placed on the ship, train or truck.  The back up sound was the machine as it went from container to container.  The sound was identical!

Mobile Shipping Containers at the port

Another view of Mobile Shipping port

        These sounds had been here all along but, being in a new place, I was conscious of the many other new sounds as mentioned in earlier blogs.  These noises only came to the forefront when the weather and conditions (inside the house – cold drafts) lined up with the scenario in the north during snow season.   I am conscious of those sounds all year long now and, rather than think of snow, I wonder, what is in those containers;  where did they come from, and where are they going?