Local government, KYTC officials evaluate winter storm response

As the icy roadways continue to thaw following Winter Storm Fern, local government and Kentucky Transportation Cabinet officials presented an evaluation of their response to the weather event on Friday.

The winter storm swept across Kentucky starting on January 24 and brought snow and ice. Since then, roadways have been heavily impacted by ice, resulting in county schools being closed for two weeks. Christian County Judge Executive Jerry Gilliam, Hopkinsville Public Works Director Mike Perry and KYTC District Two Chief Engineer Deneatra Henderson spotlighted the work their road crews did to clear the roads.

The Christian County Road Department reportedly used 1,100 tons of salt and between 300 and 400 tons of salt brine pretreatment for around 460 miles of county roads. Concerning snow and ice removal, Gilliam says crews prioritized emergency routes, school bus routes and access to vital facilities.

Gilliam says ice removal has been a challenge due to lingering frigid temperatures, and shared that other judge executives have had the same challenges in their counties.

Following the winter storm, temperatures did peak above freezing, allowing some of the ice to melt, but at night, when temperatures would dip, that ice would refreeze and possibly become even slicker. Gilliam says they used a road grader to remove some ice where snowplows were ineffective and wishes they deployed it sooner.

Hopkinsville’s Public Works Department used 1,600 tons of salt and 1,200 gallons of brine pretreatment for 368 road miles. Perry says he saw the ice buildup being referred to as “snowcrete” because it was densely packed, and snowplows were useless against it. He says plows typically go over a road once or twice to clear it, but this time, plows had to go over streets up to 12 times to clear the ice.

KYTC crews used 5,100 tons of salt, 62,000 gallons of pretreating brine and 27,000 tons of salt for wet treatment on 1,217 lane miles. Moving forward, Henderson says cabinet officials are considering changing snowplow routes to prioritize areas around neighborhoods.

Henderson also shared that no KYTC crew members were injured and that their response to the winter storm was not restricted.

Concerning response improvements for future ice events, the agencies plan to improve public education concerning winter de-icing operations, improve weather preparation planning, review priority routes, deploy road graders for ice removal sooner, install pre-wet systems on city salt trucks, review and update interagency communication protocols, develop strategies for pretreating roads during precipitation, evaluate opportunities to increase reserve supplies and collaborate with local public information officers to share weather related information.