Across the state today–about twelve-hundred ODOT crews are working long shifts to plow and treat roads. WYSO’s Kathryn Mobley spoke with ODOT Public Information Officer Kathleen Fuller for District Eight–which covers most of the Miami Valley area. Fuller calls today's event the worst of snow storms.
Kathleen Fuller: Between the extreme cold and the wind gusts, it's becoming very challenging to clear the roadways because materials are only effective to a certain temperature. Salt only reacts to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit. We do use calcium chloride, which is a liquid deicer that helps to not only have the salt actually stick to the pavement, but helps the salt to react to the much colder temperature. But at these extreme cold temperatures that we're seeing right now, it's very difficult for the salt to even work on the pavement.
Kathryn Mobley: Kathleen, what about last night? What were ODOT crews doing?
Fuller: We had crews out. They were treating. We don't do really a pretreatment when we have rain in the forecast because any type of brine solution we would have put down would have been washed away. But we had crews out there when the rain was falling, before the temperatures dropped and they were putting materials down to try and give us a little bit of a cushion. This was just something that you really can't do anything in advance. There really isn't anything that can be done that's going to be 100% effective.
Mobley: So what's the strategy?
Fuller: Right now, the main concentrate will be to plow, to try and get as much of the pavement as they possibly can. I don't mean 100%. We're not getting down to the pavement yet in a lot of the areas. Then applying the salt. And, you know, if it gets closer to where we have some actual pavement, we have basically like the wheel marks on the roadway, then the salt should stick to that and then hope to react and maybe start to melt with the sun coming up.
Mobley: How many crews do you have on the roads right now?
Fuller: 125, I believe, in our district. In Green County, we have 15 trucks. Hamilton County is on a 16 hour shift, which they started last night. The rest of our districts, crews are operating on 12 hour shifts.
