Never Too Early To Be Prepared For Snow And Ice
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) – Ice and snow might have been the farthest thing from your mind these days, but it was first thing on the mind of TxDOT.
Preparations used to begin later in the year, but sometimes those ice storms pop up earlier than excepted, so TxDOT employees have started preparing for winter weather. It's never too soon to be prepared!
To cover the 16 counties of North Texas, both TxDOT Fort Worth and TxDOT Dallas have a combined 325 dump trucks, sanders and deicers, along with 570 people that can hit the roads around the clock for winter events.
"We use a variety of materials here at TxDOT to help deice our roadways. That could be a combination of salt, sand, salt-based deicers and liquid deicers. There's not one magic product that's a magic bullet to take care of all of it ... it's going to be a combination of these products that we use to keep the roadways as safe as possible," says TxDOT representative Val Lopez.
Before and after mother nature strikes, you'll see a lot of equipment out on the roads, usually bridges and overpasses are treated first. Snow and ice events can last up to 36 hours.
Just as it's dangerous for commuters to be driving in icy weather, it's also dangerous for the TxDOT crews, so keep your distance.
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