COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)  After logging heavy hours clearing the state's roadways this past week, roughly 1,500 snowplow operators across Missouri are bracing for another round of winter weather.  Mid-Missouri was hit hard with a winter storm over the weekend with some areas in Randolph County receiving up to 8.5 inches of snow. Jefferson City Public Works Operations Division Director called the weekend “one of the most challenging events that I could remember.”  In just one week the city’s fleet of 24 trucks used 1,600 tons of salt, which Britt said is half of what they use in a typical winter.  “The staff has put out an incredible amount of overtime,” Smith said. “When they weren't working, they were in the shop and we had places for them to sleep in the shop. So, you know, not only were they doing 12-plus hour shifts, but  when they weren't working, they were not in the most comfortable locations.”  Jefferson City isn’t alone. Across the state, snowplow operators who have already been taxed with heavy hours behind the wheel are gearing up for another round of storms. Moberly has crews on call waiting for snow to arrive. But after over five inches of snow hit the streets of Moberly over the weekend, fatigue is beginning to set in.  “We started staffing Saturday night and some of those guys worked all night long and full 12-hour shifts so there's some there's a little bit of fatigue, I'll be honest,” Moberly spokesman Scott McGarvey said. “As we're  moving  vehicles around,  there's naturally going to be mechanical issues that come  that are part of a process like this  whenever you're running at this level for this long.”  On Sunday night, Chariton County was hit with a blizzard warning, making driving conditions difficult for MoDOT’s snowplow operators in the area, especially on rural roads.  “It's always tough on those low-volume roads because you don't have any shoulder and basically you have the edge of the pavement that usually drops down to the ditch,” MoDOT Northwest Maintenance and Traffic Engineer, Greg Bolo explained. “It gets tough when you're when you're driving those to figure out where that edge of the pavement is.”   The low temperatures and negative wind chills also took their toll on MoDOT’s equipment. “We worked 12 hours a day. The equipment works 24/7. So even though we get a little tired, it sometimes can be harder on the equipment that is the actual staff,” Bolo said. “One thing you can do is once you're on those 12-hour shifts at night, when we have a storm with a little bit of a gap, another storm, we tend we try to give the employees a chance to stay on those 12-hour shifts so it's easier on the body.”  While the line of winter storms has been tough on state and city officials, the sun did provide some relief during the week.  “We got a lot of help we didn't think we were going to get because sunlight's been out for most of the week. And any time you can get sun to help you with that surface melting, it really helps us out a lot because just putting salt out doesn't really do anything on roadways. You need to have moisture present to dissolve the salt,” Bolo said.  “The beautiful thing about central Missouri is that this is all going to be gone in a few days.  We're going to spend a lot of time cleaning up what's going to melt as soon as we have a few above-freezing days and some sunshine.  And we're seeing some of that already,” McGarvey added.  Both Smith and McGarvey are advising residents to avoid parking on the street until the snow passes to make life easier for snowplow operators.  “If you can move those vehicles just a little bit further away from the piles of snow that we've got, they'll help the guys get those front-end loaders in and get those bucket trucks where they need to go,” McGarvey said.  MoDOT has been having to adjust its strategy for different areas of the region based on the rapidly changing conditions.  “When you're trying to do that, over 33,000  miles of roadway across the state of Missouri and each one of us is getting different temperatures," Bolo said. “It's not an exact science what we do on a given basis.” The post Missouri snowplow crews face fatigue as more winter weather looms appeared first on ABC17NEWS.