DOVER – With yet another winter storm soon to hit Delaware, crews from the Delaware Department of Transportation spent today preparing the equipment, and getting their people ready for what looks like a multi-day snow event.
With the National Weather Service is forecasting 6-8 inches of snow falling throughout most of Delaware, hundreds of men and women of DelDOT are planning to start working before dawn tomorrow, doing all they can to make the roads as safe as possible.
Making this particular storm challenging are two factors. First, with the event starting as rain, DelDOT is not able to pre-treat the roads with salt before the snow hits. Instead, trucks must be loaded and pre-positioned, ready to start applying salt as soon as the rain switches to snow or freezing rain. Secondly, following the snowfall, forecasters are calling for unseasonably cold temperatures, which makes the salt much less effective at melting snow or ice.
Unless the forecast changes, or if conditions warrant a change, here are the staffing plans for DelDOT for overnight tonight and tomorrow morning:
· In New Castle County, crews will begin reporting for work at 11 p.m. tonight, and all crews will be working by midnight.
· In Kent County, all crews will be reporting to work at 2 a.m.
· In Sussex County, supervisors will report at 3 a.m., and all crews will report to work at 4 a.m.
Although by this point in the season motorists are well-practiced at what to do during ice and snow events, DelDOT still wants to stress the importance of staying off the roads if possible during major storms and taking it slow if you must drive.
