Road crews preparing for winter weather to come

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – With a winter storm on the horizon, road crews across South Central Kentucky are getting prepared for the unknown, as it’s still a bit too early to predict how much snow and ice we’ll see. What they do know is that the equipment is ready to go, and they’ll be treating the roads on Thursday and Friday morning.

“I’ve lived here all my life, and I can only think of a handful of times where the amount of snow that is being predicted to hit our area has been predicted,” Wes Watt, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 3 Public Information Officer, says.

Watt adds their plan is to head out and prep the roads on Thursday.

“We like to get out and put down anti-icing agents on the road, which is really just brine… mixture of salt and water. It helps lower the freezing temperatures of the roadway and buys us some more time before the roadway freezes so we can get out and plow or salt as needed… and we are going to be out on the roads Thursday and Friday with those operations…. and we just want people to be aware that we are going to be out, and motorists need to be aware of snow and ice vehicles on the roadway,” he says.

Crews in Barren County are getting ready to do the same thing. Road supervisor Jamie DeGroft says his crews are also heading out Thursday to salt the more than 600 miles of county roads.

“Hopefully we can get across every road. That gives us 2 days to when the snow moves in Saturday. At that time we will start trucks, plows, salt, trying to get the roads cleared,” DeGroft says.

If you see these vehicles out and about, Watt has a couple of tips to make sure crews can do their jobs safely.

“Please do not crowd these vehicles. Give them plenty of space. Do not tailgate them or anything like that. Please just give them plenty of room. They are trying to do a job that’s very, very important,” he says.

The number one tip they have: stay home and be patient.

“The less vehicles on the roadway during these type of events, the better. Certainly would prevent crashes and things like that because they are predicting major traffic impacts with this system. But again, these are all predictions. We don’t want to alarm anybody, but people just need to be aware of what’s going on, what’s being predicted and what we’re doing to respond to these type of weather events,” Watt says.

“Just be patient, we will get to your road so y’all can get out,” DeGroft adds.

News 40 Weather will keep you updated as we learn more about the storm.