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Robert Bunting, Warren County Department of Public Works employee, drops a softball into a set of rings during the excavator skills challenge at the highway employees safety event on Wednesday.
WARRENSBURG — The Warren County Fairgrounds was filled with local highway employees, equipment and booths for the second Highway Employees Safety Days event organized by the Town Highway Superintendents Association of Warren County on Wednesday.
The event was held over two days starting on Tuesday and ran from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. each day. Funding for Safety Days comes from the Town Highway Superintendents Association of Warren County and the group’s many sponsors.
There is no cost to the individual municipalities to attend the event. Crews from Warren County, Glens Falls, Queensbury and other municipalities were in attendance on both days.
The event is designed to bring safety issues to light and provide training through seminars and skills challenges to the crews.
Amy Clute, insurance administrator at Warren County and organizer of the event, said a goal of the event is to bring awareness to safety while having fun.
“We do it to promote morale and teach them how to be safe and work safely,” she said. “And kind of reward them for all of the work that they do all winter.”
This is the second time the Safety Days event has been put on. The first was held by Warren County in 2019. The organizers took a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic before bringing the event back this year.
Glens Falls and Warren County Department of Public Works vehicles are seen parked next to each other at the Warren County Fairgrounds on Wednesday. The Highway Employees Safety Days event is designed to promote safety and provide training to highway workers at the county and town level.
Ralph Bartlett, the county’s fire coordinator, was hosting a class on fire extinguishers and how to properly use them. There was also a class on soil classification.
“At the end of the day, (the crews) come back and they regroup and discuss why safety is important and how incidents happen,” Clute said.
The discussion at the end of the day was led by Phil Spiezio, Washington County senior safety officer. He created this kind of event when he became the Washington County safety officer in 2009, which inspired Warren County to do something similar.
Spiezio said that the event serves as a training with interactive elements thrown into the mix. Speaking with people face to face and participating in things like skill challenges aid the learning process, he said.
Safety Days is designed to teach crews about treating people right, doing the job safely and putting in the effort, he said.
“This event encompasses that,” Spiezio said. “They walk away with a positive safety image.”
Washington County will host its version of the Safety Days event at the Washington County Fairgrounds on June 21 and June 22.
Members of highway departments and public works departments throughout Warren County line up for lunch during the Highway Employees Safety Days event on Wednesday.
Booths were also set up with information on sun safety, tick safety and emergency preparedness. There were booths set up by association partners in the insurance field for highway workers to get more information.
Along with the presentations and informational booths, the event featured skills challenges which simulated tasks employees would be asked to do on the job.
“We use them as kind of fun things,” Clute said. “They can win prizes and awards at the end of the day. But we also are using them so maybe they’ll learn that they are not seeing everything when they back up.”
One challenge called “Truck Road-eo” was designed so crews can practice backing up their vehicles without hitting anything. There were traffic cones set up throughout the perimeter of a vehicle.
The hydro-seeder challenge allows crew members to use a hose with hydro-seeder and spray a ball as far as they could. This allows for crews to get used to and more familiar with certain kinds of equipment.
The excavator challenge allowed crew members to hop into the machine and learn the how to use the controls by simulating tasks that could be done using it.
The operator was tasked with lifting up a softball and placing it into a certain size ring, which simulated moving material, such as rocks, to where they are supposed to be on a project site. They were also tasked with using a chain attached to the excavator to lift up a water bucket and place it inside a hoop placed on the ground.
Clute said that crews would do something similar when taking care of a culvert on site.
“Maybe they’re not going to run a hose and shoot it at a ball. Maybe they are going to get a hose out and they’ll need to be able to control it,” she said.
Jay Mullen is a reporter for The Post-Star covering the city of Glens Falls, Warren County and crime and courts. You can reach him at 518-742-3224 or jmullen@poststar.com.
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Robert Bunting, Warren County Department of Public Works employee, drops a softball into a set of rings during the excavator skills challenge at the highway employees safety event on Wednesday.
Members of highway departments and public works departments throughout Warren County line up for lunch during the Highway Employees Safety Days event on Wednesday.
Glens Falls and Warren County Department of Public Works vehicles are seen parked next to each other at the Warren County Fairgrounds on Wednesday. The Highway Employees Safety Days event is designed to promote safety and provide training to highway workers at the county and town level.
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