ODOT And Local Road Crews Tend To Roads Ahead of Expected Winter Conditions

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is preparing to spend the next couple days clearing roads. 

Crews pre-treated highways to help speed up that process but ODOT says it still takes time. 

There are some things to prepare for tomorrow if you need to get around,

 OG&E says they are staging 3,000 personnel across service areas to get ahead of the bad road conditions we’re going to see in the coming days.

And they aren't alone -- O-DOT has been hard at work preparing the roads.

Several areas including most of the metro bridges and overpasses were treated with salt brine on Monday.

“Essentially, that pretreatment in certain conditions helps melt the ice from underneath. when the ice forms, it can help us treat the area a little bit faster, but it still takes time,” Lisa Shearer-Salim, ODOT spokesperson. 

But, its not a cure-all. Roads could still become snow packed and dangerous.

“Really, they loaded up their trucks with salt and sand and are ready to go as soon as the rain expected tomorrow turns into freezing precipitation,” Shearer-Salim said. 

Here are some tips from OGE:

Stay weather aware - check conditions before you go out.  

Have your emergency kit stocked and readily available in your vehicle;

Make sure all of your devices are fully charged; and

Customers with life-sustaining and life-saving equipment at home should make plans now for severe cold weather.

And if you do need to drive somewhere – be cautious.

“Plan extra time, drive for conditions, definitely give a lot of space between yourself and other vehicles, and particularly stay more than 200 feet behind our snowplow equipment,” she said. 

OKTRAFFIC.org has traffic cameras that you can check for statewide road conditions.