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'Everybody's kind of whooped': Small towns hire private company to salt, clear roads after winter storm

Steepleton, known for selling pool tables, have nine of their own trucks working round the clock clearing streets and spreading salt.

INDIAN HILLS, Ky. — As snow plows and salt trucks work hard to minimize ice and snow on the roads across Louisville, the smaller cities have hired their own private crews to do the same.

Steepleton, known for selling pool tables, have nine of their own trucks working round the clock clearing streets and spreading salt.

“Think we started yesterday [Thursday] at 3:00 or 3:30,” said a very tired Jacob Stengel. “It’s all starting to kind of run together.”

Stengel has been dropping the salt, while his boss and Steepleton owner Jim Graven has been coordinating routes.

“We’ve ran through about 60 tons of salt, that’s a lot of salt,” Graven said.

He points out his crews were working about 20 miles of road in Indian Hills alone, going over the same streets five or six times.

“Everybody’s kind of whooped,” Graven said.

Graven also says that his salt purchases are up 100% over last year so far this winter.

Crews couldn’t get a head start on Thursday’s storm.

“It wasn’t really an option to pre-salting,” Stengel said. “Because of the rain before, and waiting for it to switch over.”

Friday, they raced to pre-treat the roads because what melted had the potential to refreeze with dropping temperatures.

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