Thursday evening I was driving westbound along Route 842, and between Mill Road and Byrd Road the blustery wind was blowing the snow from the open fields onto the road. At some points the road was already down to one lane.
When I got home I put up a warning on my Facebook page. This prompted a friend and neighbor to reminisce about snow fences, which he recalled from his youth. These fences, made of strips of vertical wooden lath secured fairly close together with wire, used to be unrolled by the highway department along roadsides where snow blowing onto the road was known to be a problem. Low-tech, sure, but they were very effective at keeping the drifts back.
I hadn't thought of snow fences for years. What happened to them?
That is a really good question! Snow fences do the job that would otherwise be handled by hedgerows between the field and the road. Unfortunately many of these hedgerows have been cleared away in the name of aesthetics,only to trade one "problem" for another. My guess is that tight municipal budgets prevent the annual placement and removal of snow fences, but a one time investment of planting could reap many seasons of rewards!
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