Winter Weather in the Forecast
Trending
WHEELING -- With the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh predicting a winter weather advisory for the Ohio Valley beginning at 1 a.m. Tuesday, area road crews are prepared to take action in the event roadways require treatment for snowy conditions.
Representatives of both the City of Wheeling Operations Department and the West Virginia Division of Highways District Six say they have crews on standby and stockpiles of salt and cinders ready to treat local roadways in the event the region receives an overnight winter blast.
While portions of northwest, southwest and western Pennsylvania and the northern panhandle of West Virginia are expecting to see 3 to 5 inches of snow accumulations between 1 a.m. Tuesday and 7 a.m. Wednesday, the NWS map showed the Wheeling area could see 3 inches of accumulation during that time.
According to the National Weather Service, travel could be very difficult and hazardous conditions could impact the morning or evening commute today.
City of Wheeling Public Works Director Russell Jebbia said the city’s operations department has crews ready to treat city streets in the event of any overnight accumulation and they have plenty of salt stockpiled.
"We filled the salt shed up at the end of the last winter season, so we've got plenty of material," Jebbia explained. He said they have installed salt spreaders on additional trucks for this winter season.
"We will have probably 8 to 10 trucks with (salt) spreaders on them if we need them, and it doesn't take that long to put the spreaders on (trucks) if we need additional ones," Jebbia commented. "We don't have them on all of our dump trucks because we still need some of our dump trucks because we're still picking up leaves and doing the regular maintenance we do this time of the year."
Jebbia said crews use a "salt/cinder mix" on city streets and have 1,000 tons of salt stockpiled in the city's salt shed in Claytor. He said they will have a "midnight crew" working and ready to treat city streets. He said once they begin to receive reports the higher elevations are being impacted by snow or ice they will begin sending drivers out immediately to treat the city roads.
WVDOH District 6 Engineer Tony Clark said their crews will be prepared for any accumulations as well.
"We try to be as efficient as possible," Clark explained while talking about treating area roadways for ice and snow. "We will be ready to deploy ideally before the snow starts and that's in every (District Six) county," he added.
Clark said anytime the region receives a significant accumulation that starts to cover area roads, the DOH begins treating their main "primary routes" first, such as the interstates and U.S and W.Va. routes before they break off to treat the secondary routes.
"That's generally our plan of action anytime the snow starts falling," Clark commented. "Our guys will most likely be treating with salt alone on the interstate and almost everywhere else with some salt/cinder mix, but it varies depending on the conditions ... and what our guys encounter," he added.
Local residents were seen purchasing salt supplies and snow shovels at area stores Monday. An employee for the Tractor Supply store in Elm Grove said sales were brisk with both salt and snow shovels early Monday.