CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- As North Carolina prepares for possible winter weather conditions, road crews were out Monday treating the surfaces in the Queen City.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation used 20 contract trucks to treat the interstates. It will likely use its own crews Tuesday to finish treating primary roads.
An NCDOT spokesperson said the department is expecting to see up to an inch of accumulation and wants to make sure roads are treated to keep anything from bonding to the surface.
The City of Charlotte’s Street Maintenance Division will begin brine operations Tuesday as needed during the day and night.
Highway Patrol said troopers will be out clearing the roadways of any abandoned cars before any winter weather. There will also be more troopers on patrol in the case of hazardous road conditions.
“Our call volume usually doubles, triples in an instant when the weather gets bad,” Trooper Ray Pierce said.
Troopers normally respond to 75 to 80 calls about crashes on a nice, sunny day, Pierce said, but that number nearly triples when there’s ice or snow on the roads.
Pierce said the crash numbers tend to go up on major highways around Charlotte, such as I-85, I-77 and I-485 due to the high traffic intensity.
“485 is always the worst roadway in this area,” Pierce added. “It’s the largest interstate that we’ve got in the county, but our call volume is usually the highest on 485.”
Pierce was encouraging drivers to make sure they have the needed supplies on the road in an emergency like a charged cell phone, water, blankets, and a full tank of gas.
He also warned people out on the roads to take it slow, leave plenty of space between cars and pay extra attention.
“If there is going to be snow or ice, also look out for those bridges and overpasses cause those are going to be the areas that freeze up first,” Pierce said.