TOLEDO, Ohio — Holiday travel plans, including air travel, could be disrupted due to severe weather warnings just around the corner.
More than a dozen employees are training on brooms, plows and snow blowers to clear snow and ice from the runway, the manager of public safety and airport operations at Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport, Cody Donnelly, said.
"They are all used for different functions," Donnelly said. "The brooms are meant for a lighter snow, the plows are used for a heavier wet snow and then the snow blowers are used in cleanup to get the snow off of the airfield,"
Crews could be working as long as 24-hour days during snowstorms, which is impossible without the training, he said.
The goal is to get the runway in a condition no worse than wet.
"That means we have to get rid of all the snow, all the ice," airport director Tim O'Donnell said. "We've got to get it off to make sure it's safe for our travelers. Our team works really hard and they do a great job of keeping the airport open."
He said it's not just maintenance workers who push the plows either. O'Donnell does too, he said.
"We all go through it, even me," he said. "We all get in the truck. We all get familiar because we don't know what kind of snowstorm we are going to see. We want to be prepared and when we get a big storm it's all hands on deck, we all work together as a team."
The Toledo airport has ordered 50 tons of sand for the airfield and 30 tons of road salt. And with the training, there is a slim chance of any flights being canceled, O'Donnell said. The only flights leaving the Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express airport through Christmas are going to Arizona or Florida.
"As long as we are doing our job in keeping the airport open, we should be on track to not take delays and cancellations. That's our goal," O'Donnell said.