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Be Prepared to Bring in Staff from Surrounding Jurisdictions

• Have an assist plan or mutual aid agreement in place with other state Department of Transportation regions. Snowplows from neighboring regions can simply extend their plow routes into other regions when needed.
• When short-staffed, bring in non-operations staff, such as design or construction staff, to assist with the Incident Command System (ICS).
• Designate a staff member to serve as storm manager for major snow events. The storm manager will be responsible for communicating with the governor’s office, and for writing storm reports when requested by the state. Depending on the severity and number of regions impacted by the storm, multiple storm managers will need to be assigned to monitor the situation.

Keep Staff Up-to-Date on Training

• At least once per year, hold a table top exercise and one full-scale exercise where snow plow drivers are behind the wheel and run through the entire disaster response process.
• Snow plow drivers should take a refresher training course each fall to ensure they are familiar with any new equipment and changes to standard operating procedures.