DOT can’t salt roads, Highway Patrol and drivers prep for winter weather

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY)– Highway Patrol, the Department of Transportation and residents are preparing for winter weather on Tuesday.

As the DOT has crews on standby with salt for the roads, state troopers are adjusting their schedules to prepare for Tuesday’s weather, and people in New Hanover County have mixed feelings about the possibility of snow and being stuck inside.

Driver Leanne Hudson says the winter weather can just stay away.

“I don’t want to have to drive my car through the ice,” Hudson said. “I don’t want to have to deal with it. It sounds terrible.”

Salt trucks normally cover the roads before winter weather arrives, but Monday North Carolina Department of Transportation spokesman Brian Rick says rain prevented that.

“In the case like it is right now, where you have rain constantly, it would not be effective at all to actually pour the brine,” Rick said. “It would just be simply washed away.”

Rick says the moisture now sitting on the roads could be even more hazardous as the temperature drops. He says drivers need to avoid driving or be extra cautious.

“If they must get out there and they must travel, be extremely cautious. I mean a seriously safe following distance from the vehicle in front of you, because you want to allow yourself a chance to slow down without slamming your brakes,” Rick said. “If you hit the brakes, you know, on a patch of road that’s frozen, you’re going to go into a skid.”

Staying off the roads is fine with high school student Micah Jones if that means school is closed.

“I was a little excited,” Jones said.

Rick says bridges will freeze first if the temperature drops, because the air underneath them is much thinner. If you are on the roads, he says drive slowly and watch out for black ice.