Mayor Cannon to Charlotte drivers: 'Stay home'

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Channel 9 caught up with Charlotte mayor, Patrick Cannon Wednesday morning as the winter storm approached the Queen City.

The mayor said many area roads had already been treated by crews in the past 24 hours.

"We have somewhere around 2,100 miles of city-maintained streets that have been covered, residential included," Cannon said. "We want to continue to make sure that we're doing all that we can to work with the state department of transportation and others with our emergency management team to make sure that the streets out there are as safe as they need to be."

Even though the roads are being treated, the mayor warned Charlotte residents to stay off them until the storm passes.

"We don't want anyone to get out there and be misled, because right now the streets look okay. But we would warn the public, please don't get led into a false sense of security," Cannon said. "Once that snow starts to fall, it's going to fall rapidly -- potentially an inch an hour, or so we understand -- and you could very well find yourself in an accident…or of course you could be stuck in your vehicle and that's something we don't want to have happen."

For complete coverage of snowstorm 2014, visit our special section here.

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