Hot job summer: The asphalt pavement process

 

By Tim Potter, 
District Five Public Affairs Manager 

Imagine this: You’re under a blinding sun along U.S. 50 near the town of Walton, and the combined heat and humidity makes it feel like around 106 degrees. It’s suffocatingly hot, the kind of conditions that trigger a heat advisory.

Not just that: You’re laying down asphalt cooking at around 250 degrees when you first apply it. The stiff south wind feels like more of a blast furnace than a cooling breeze. You’ve worked through lunch because overlaying a side road at a highway is one of those jobs where it’s not real practical to take a normal 30-minute break. The equipment has been strategically positioned, and the different tasks involved must click right along. The asphalt -- and the process for applying, shaping and finishing it -- is demanding, unforgiving.

That is what it was like for a combined team of crew members – from the Newton Subarea, District Special Crew and El Dorado Area and El Dorado Subarea -- the afternoon of July 28. If you had to visit one of the hottest KDOT jobs on an extra sweltering day, this was it. They had been overlaying side roads for almost two weeks.

Sweat beads covered the reddened face of Bobby Jones that afternoon as he matter-of-factly explained the work being done and the reality of enduring merciless weather.

“The hotter it is, the nicer it lays,” Jones said of the asphalt. “You have to work it while the asphalt’s hot.” The Newton Subarea Supervisor watched a massive roller compact the new surface. Even though they had paving machines, some of the finishing and clean-up tasks must be done by hand, by bending over a shovel and pushing and lifting.

Through it all, “You have to drink lots of fluids; otherwise, you’ll be laid out on top of the asphalt,” Jones said. “If you don’t keep hydrating, this heat will take it right out of you in a heartbeat.”

Everyone had a different role in the overlay job, and part of it was paying attention to their co-workers – operators making sure they didn’t drive over someone, everyone staying aware of the semis barreling past only feet away, everyone making sure that the next person wasn’t overcome by the heat.

“This is a team effort,” Jones said. “We all have to watch out for each other.”

#IAMKDOT: Robyn Daniels

By Priscilla Petersen
Southeast Kansas 
Public Affairs Manager,
Illustration by Mallory Goeke 

When she’s not administering contracts and coordinating staff at the Independence office, Robyn Daniels can be found checking the progress on construction projects and visiting with KDOT inspectors throughout Montgomery, Wilson, Elk and Chautauqua counties.

Daniels is the Engineering Technician Specialist for the Independence Construction office. She began her KDOT career of over 30 years – 31 this May – as an Office Assistant at Independence. She continued her path forward by promoting through the construction ranks as an Engineering Technician and Engineering Technician Senior before being selected as the Specialist several years ago.

Daniels was among the KDOT employees who developed and constructed 11 miles of new roadway for U.S. 400 through Wilson and Montgomery counties during the 1990s. She remembers how different it was back then as construction personnel traveled from place to place along the new highway corridor.

“Every part of the work zone was torn up,” she recalled. “We had only hand-held radios - it was hard to track down other people on the project.”

Another great change that she has experienced through the years has been in the progress of office paperwork - the transition from using carbon paper to making multiple copies of change orders to a much more streamlined electronic systems for contract administration and record keeping.

She and her husband, Terry, live in Independence. The couple has three daughters. In her free time Daniels and her family enjoy camping and boating at Elk City Lake.

KDOT employees revive military history

By Deb Gruver,
Public Affairs Manager for south central Kansas 

 Mic Huddleston jokes about how he got involved in helping restore World War II vehicles.

"Wrong place at the wrong time," he says with a chuckle.

Mic Huddleston, Area Supervisor for Area Four in District Five, right, chats with Kevin Lockwood about the World War II vehicles they have restored together.

But surrounded by some of the half-track and other vehicles his tinkering has helped brought back to life, it's obvious Huddleston loves spending time at Kevin Lockwood's spacious shop.

Huddleston is the Area Supervisor for District Five's Area Four in Great Bend. He's been helping restore Lockwood's WWII collection for about 20 years.

"This would not be here without Mic," Lockwood says.

Mic Huddleston has been helping Kevin Lockwood restore World War II vehicles for about 20 years. He says it's one way to honor those in his and Lockwood's family who have served in the military..

Both Huddleston's and Lockwood's families "have a good history of military service," Huddleston says.

Lockwood and his team of volunteers take the vehicles to schools, air shows and other events. Huddleston really enjoyed going to Fort Hays for Hays Days. 

Lockwood owns the vehicles. He bought his first one in 1990. Since then, he and the crew have restored about eight, including an LVT-3 Bushmaster, thought to be the only operational one of its kind in the world. Used in the Pacific Theater, it could load a Jeep or a canon and haul Marines onto a beach or rescue wounded.

"This is basically a ship that crawls on land," Lockwood says.

This LVT-3 Bushmaster is believed to be the only operational one in the world. 

An average restoration takes a couple of years, the two men say. About five people, including Lockwood, show regularly to help out. 

It's a lot of work, Huddleston says, but worth it.

"It's one way to pay back," he says.

This is what the LVT-3 Bushmaster that Kevin Lockwood, Mic Huddleston and other volunteers restored looked like when they first got it. Both vehicles were in about the same shape, and the crew decided to restore the other one.