ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI)– With winter weather about to slam the region, road crews in both Missouri and Illinois say they will be ready. But there are concerns the timing of the storm systems could wreak havoc.
“The rush tomorrow evening has us concerned right now,” IDOT’s Joseph Monroe said Wednesday afternoon. He worries that a change over from a mix of freezing rain to snow could happen at the height of Thursday evening traffic. Crews were out all day Wednesday pre-treating highways just in case.
“We’re being very aggressive in being out in front of it and pre-treating everything so hopefully that will buy us time and get us through the rush hour before we would have a problem where we would have a situation where traffic would need to slow considerably, and our trucks would start getting bogged down,” Monroe said.
Snow is expected to fall, and temperatures are forecast to plummet in the overnight hours from Thursday into Friday, leaving more problems to contend with.
“We will be in a situation where there could be some black ice, even,” MoDOT’s Becky Allmeroth told Fox 2. “That’s where we need to be on top of it, make sure we have that pre-treatment down to try to prevent that, but that’s where motorists really need to pay attention to the conditions and give themselves some extra time.”
Private companies that plow office and mall parking lots were also worried about the double dose hitting rush hour periods.
Carl Bolm from BSR Services said, “Always the daytime storms, late afternoon, rush hour storms, are always critical to get the clients out of the buildings safely. It’s always an important time.”
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