Gov. Josh Stein discusses North Carolina’s winter storm response
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Crews with the North Carolina Department of Transportation have made steady progress clearing highways and roads since a major winter storm affected the state this weekend, but some roads remain covered with snow and ice making travel dangerous.
On Tuesday, WWAY Anchor Jeff Rivenbark spoke with North Carolina Governor Josh Stein about the state’s response to a winter storm which began Saturday and continued Sunday morning.
“It really was a rare event because it was a double whammy,” Stein said. “Two weekends we got hit by sleet and freezing rain which had major impacts on the roads and within days we get hit with a storm that covered the entirety of the state and all 100 counties got snow and some of the amounts in southeastern North Carolina are just mind boggling — 16 inches, 18 inches. So, it was a huge effort to respond.”
Stein also took the opportunity to thank NCDOT workers, crews and contractors who have worked seemingly non-stop to prep and clear the roads.
“They put down about 10-million gallons of brine before each of the two storms,” Stein said. “Since the storms, they have used 100,000 tons of salt and they probably have another 20,000 tons to go. They have been working their butts off. They worked 90 hours last week and so this week it’s been more of the same.”
While the NCDOT does have infrastructure and contingency plans in place for handling winter weather events, when it comes at once and affects the entire state, that poses a big challenge.
“North Carolina has more state road miles to maintain that any other state in the county other than Texas,” and Stein added, “It is just a huge enterprise whenever we get hit by a storm that covers the entirety of the state.”
Most winter storms that impact North Carolina tend to be more regionalized.
“We can move resources from one region to help out another region that got hit hard but not this time because everybody has been working hard on the roads and highways in their own region,” Stein said.
Now, that this storm is over, Stein says NCDOT leaders are focused on the preparations necessary for the next potential storm like making sure there are adequate stockpiles of salt.
“We had enough at the start of this –about 150,000 tons which is enough typically for three storms,” Stein said. “We are now below 50,000 tons which means we could respond to one more storm.
Stein says they are quickly working hard to replenish the state’s supply of salt because “if we got hit by another double whammy we don’t want to be in a position where we can’t treat the roads.”
Adding to this challenge is the fact that North Carolina isn’t the only state working to replenish its stockpiles of salt.
“The problem is — other states are similarly constrained by how much salt they have because everybody got hit by the storm two weekends ago,” Stein said. “So we’re calling in all of our contacts to resupply salt as quickly as possible.”
