At The Linc, Massive Snow Removal Operation In Preparation For Saturday Night
By Mike DeNardo and Steve Patterson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A massive effort was underway today to clear all of the snow out of Lincoln Financial Field in time for Saturday night's Eagles playoff game.
With temperatures in the teens and a cold, biting wind, 400 contracted workers from American Winter Services and local unions were shoveling snow from the seats at the Linc.
"We check the people when they come in and we also supply them with a winter hat, winter gloves, hand warmers, foot warmers, and any PPE equipment also," explains Jason Miller, the Eagles' VP of facility operations.
They started at 7:30 a.m. and expected to finish by midnight tonight.
The snow is dumped into chutes that deposit the snow at field level. Miller says front-end loaders take it from there.
"Pick it up, take it out, put it in the parking lot," he recites. "And from there they take it from the parking lot and dump it into the dump trucks. And then the city and the Navy Yard have worked with us: we take it from there and we dump it on the old airport in the Navy Yard."
And this isn't the first time the field had to be cleared in time for a game.
"This isn't our first one. We've been doing this since 2003. All the way back to the NFC Championship game in 2004," Miller says. "So we've definitely fine-tuned it and made it a little better. Hopefully, I'll get home to sleep in my bed tonight."
If the Eagles play with the same intensity as these shoveling crews, the Saints don't stand a snowball's chance.