Mother Nature doesn't care if you have places to go.

So she doesn't care when it snows, and it has snowed almost every day since the new year started, piling up more than a foot of powder in the past week.

According to the National Weather Service, the county has had five days with more than 1.8 inches of snow and two of them, including Thursday, dropped 2.8 inches on the ground.

Dealing with all the snow are the crews who plow parking lots, sidewalks and even the runway at the Butler County Airport.

"It's going pretty good here, said Bob Oesterling, who drives a private plow. "We've been busy. (We) don't get a lot of sleep some nights, but we like to see it snow in the snow plowing business."

Oesterling's Concrete in Butler puts its fleet of trucks to work plowing snow in the winter months.

"We normally run six, but we will run as many as eight or nine trucks if heavier snows come. With the snow predicted in the upcoming forecast, we may need to get more trucks out," Oesterling said.

He said his business contracts with commercial and residential customers during the summer and fall, then plows automatically once snow hits the ground.

Oesterling's plow drivers will cover about 18 acres of pavement before calling it a day.

"We generally start around 2 a.m., and with these lighter snows, we finish by 9:30 a.m. Then we move on to our residential clients," Oesterling said.

At the airport, manager Ivan Longdon and his staff are putting in long hours keeping the runway and taxiways clear.

"We're staying ahead of it. We're here 12 to 14 hours a day now. That's been nonstop since about Sunday," Longdon said on Friday.

"There's no one answering the phones right now because our secretary is out plowing."

The airport's staff — Longdon, a maintenance worker and the secretary — must scramble between plowing and reporting runway conditions to a flight service station.

A flight service station is an air traffic facility that provides information to pilots before, during, and after flights, but it is not responsible for giving instructions or clearances or providing plane separation like an air traffic controller.

With aircraft hitting the tarmac at speeds in excess of 120 knots, or about 140 mph, the airport must report whether braking action is poor, fair or good.

An inability to use snow-melting chemicals on the runway complicates the job and makes snow clearance a constant task.

"We cannot use salt on our pavements because they are corrosive to the aircraft. The only thing we can do is plow down to the pavement as best we can," Longdon said.

Also battling the snow is the Butler County Community College, which clears about 1,500 parking spaces and 1.5 miles of roads to keep the Butler Township campus open.

Brian Opitz, director of operations, said a crew of eight work in shifts to keep the campus accessible. Workers plow snow into an end space of a parking lot where a front-end loader scoops up the snow and dumps it out of the way.

So far this winter, Opitz said, snow clearing hasn't been a problem. Because the college isn't in session yet, crews have been able to avoid overtime and just work during the day.

At off-campus sites, such as Cranberry Township and Hermitage, Mercer County, the college hires private contractors for snow removal.

But Opitz also noted that, unlike road crews, the college has many sidewalks and plenty of stairs to shovel by hand.

BC3 starts classes Jan. 19.

In northern Butler County, John Cowan, assistant director of services, facilities and planning at Slippery Rock University, said there are 19 people who handle the snow on campus. One crew works from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. while another works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

"Each person has a geography assigned to them and that is based on the equipment they use, whether it's a salt truck or a plow or shovel," Cowan said.

"That is including stairs, steps and sidewalks and it really takes the department the better part of the day to complete the snow removal."

While the workers aren't formally on call, campus police call them for help when the conditions require it.

"Usually, the threshold is one inch of snow or more that requires a call-in," Cowan said.

"We always have to have our main road ready and available for emergency response, regardless of whether students are here or not."

SRU has classes starting Jan. 19.

Dump trucks with plows affixed are not the only vehicles put to work during the heavy snowfall.

Tim McCalman recently added snow removal to the list of services provided by his first-year business, Needs, in Herman.

"I just have a small machine, an ATV with a plow," McCalman said.

"Plowing is a constant thing up here, but I don't do the big commercial jobs."

Most of McCalman's work is done for free.

He plows the lot at North Main Street Church of God, where he does maintenance work as well as St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church near his home, and the lot at The Arc of Butler County, where his wife works.

Heidi Burford, administrative assistant at the Mars Alliance Church at 997 Route 228 in Adams Township, said that church uses volunteers and members of its board to clear snow from the church's parking lots.

"They're very faithful. They come (when it snows) at about 5 a.m. And, we're a pretty big church," Burford said.

"We're very blessed to have our volunteers."

Eagle staff writers Ed Biller, Stephanie Rex, Megan Duncan and Bob Schultz contributed to this report.