Street treatment appears to do the trick for this winter storm
A midweek snow day was enough to close schools and some agencies Wednesday, but this storm brought far less trouble than the last one.
Total accumulations reached only a few inches Tuesday into Wednesday, a far cry from more than a foot of snow dropped on the region in the Jan. 5 blizzard. That made for a much easier cleanup for area road crews.
Pre-treatment was placed on roads throughout St. Joseph ahead of the recent winter weather and an actual salt treatment has helped keep the roads manageable.
“Last night, we had the night crew come in at midnight and put an actual salt treatment down starting on the emergency routes,” said Jackson Jones, the city’s superintendent of streets and infrastructure. “We are not where we need to be for plowable depth, but the treatment we have down is showing to be pretty effective on the emergencies.”
Jones said the plows get ready if the snow reaches two to two and a half inches and continues to come down hard. That hasn’t been necessary at this point.
Wednesday’s snowfall is very different compared to January’s blizzard. Street crews worked nonstop plowing roads for almost a week last month. This snowfall only required pre-treatment and salting.
On Wednesday, city trucks were out dropping beat-juice-coated rock salt. The beat juice mix is key in cold temperatures, Jones said.
“It does several things: it lowers the effective melting temperature of the salt, it makes the salt work in colder temperatures, it holds the salt in place,” Jones said. “It keeps it from clogging up our spreaders.”
Leading up to this snowfall, Jones said he was anticipating needing to put plows out on the roads.
“It was unexpected because we were fully gearing up to plow. Originally, earlier in the week, it was four to eight inches, then it dropped to three to six,” Jones said. “Now it looks like it’s just going to be a couple of inches.”
Roads throughout the area will continue to get treated, and Jones said it could take 36 to 48 hours after the snow stops before all roads are completely passed over.
