Why do we sweep the streets? While it does make the city cleaner – there’s another underlying, essential function. “The main purpose of the street sweeper is to clear the catch basins,” Streets General Maintenance Worker/Equipment Operator Tom Fick explained. “While they won’t be sparkling clean, we can get 95% of debris with the sweepers.” Keeping the catch basins clear of debris also helps prevent puddling in city streets during heavy rain. Fick is one of the Department of Public Works Street team members you see behind the wheel of our street sweepers traveling at a mere 5 mph! This time of year he may spend an entire day slowly traveling the city. “Yesterday I had to dump debris from the sweeper nine times,” Fick said. “It’s everything from leaves to debris to gravel.”
Street sweeping is one of many tasks assigned to our Streets team. Depending on the time of year they also perform crack sealing, spray patching, cold patching, chip sealing, large pavement repairs, road reconstruction, utility cuts, snow and ice removal, traffic signs, pavement markings and striping, temporary sidewalk repairs and traffic control. And on occasion, they may even rescue a few ducklings from a catch basin! Back in 2020, Fick noticed a momma duck circling the street so he stopped to investigate – ultimately finding the ducklings in the catch basin. Fick and two other employees got to work and helped reunite them. Other times he’s had to clean up sugar beets and gravel which accidentally ended up on the streets. Most recently he was called on to find a mattress in the road. “Every day is different. We never know what a new day will bring,” Fick shared.
Each day typically begins the same – with a team meeting. Their supervisor tells them what’s on the schedule for the day, knowing it may change at any moment. This spring a lot of time has been spent on potholes. Thankfully this week asphalt plants reopened – which will allow the Streets team to use hot patch instead of cold patch. Hot patch is a lot more effective than cold patch – but is not available year-round. “This year was the worst pothole season I’ve seen. The freeze-thaw cycle was intense, plus all the rain we received got into the cracks in the streets and just popped up the potholes,” Fick said.
When snow is on the ground – Fick switches from street sweeping to snowplowing. No matter what task he’s performing – there are 450 lane miles of streets to work on. Fick doesn’t mind the solitude. “I’ve driven trucks all my life – I’m just used to it,” Fick explained. Before the City of Bay City, Fick worked as a truck driver and worked on construction crews in heavy equipment. But in that line of work Fick had to travel a fair amount. “I missed a lot of my boys’ lives back then. My wife was a rockstar for making it all work,” Fick explained. “I was so excited when I got to tell them I was coming home and was staying.” Like many people Fick got his foot in the door in Sanitation – before moving to other city divisions when openings popped up. He’s also worked in Water and Sewer, with some time on the bridges. He officially moved to the Streets, Fleet and Bridges Division in 2017. “While we certainly have overtime, I also get to be home at the end of the day. That wasn’t the case before.”
Original source can be found here.
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