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NCDOT treats area roads in preperation for winter storm

By Kathryn Burcham
By Kathryn Burcham

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For hours Tuesday, dozens of North Carolina Department of Transportation crews and private contractors prepared for the weather, sharpening their plows, filling their gas tanks and getting ready to hit the roads the minute the first flake fell.
 
Workers have been preparing for their first big snow event for the past few months with equipment maintenance and even practice driving on the routes, NCDOT said.
 
Officials are using 30 NCDOT crews on primary and secondary routes. They have contracts with 63 private trucks to treat the interstates.
 
Crews will be working around the clock for the next 24 hours, but officials are still warning drivers to be cautious, as their concerns about the roadways won't end when the snow stops falling.
 
"Our concern over the next several nights is how cold it's going to be.  Anything left over will refreeze, so we still have to be concerned with ice," said Jen Thompson with NCDOT.

SCDOT treat roads for winter storm

The South Carolina Department of Transportation laid down its first batch of brine solution Monday night.

They have enough salt and water solution on hand to brine roads for at least three days.

To prepare the brine, salt is poured into water and from there it's pumped onto a truck, which can hold between 500 and 1,000 gallons of the solution.

DOT crews are handling all state roads, while crews with the city of Rock Hill are brining local ones.

The major area of concern for state workers in York County is Interstate 77 from the state line to the Chester County line.  
 
The workers have been divided into two groups of 50, with each working 12-hour shifts. In addition to maintaining roads, they're also working with emergency crews to handle trouble spot.

"All during the evening we have folks manning the phones and sometimes a highway patrol (trooper) might call in and tell us that they've had so-and-so accidents in a certain area and we'll dispatch a truck out there to handle that problem,” said John Welborn, SCDOT inspector.

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