ST. LOUIS – Road crews and law enforcement will have their hands full as a storm ramps up Friday.
MoDOT’s Transportation Management Center is where MoDOT monitors many roadways in the area for any problems that might develop. There are lots of wet roadways around the area at this hour so drivers certainly have to use some caution.
MoDOT officials told FOX 2 that they will be fully staffed and ready to work 12-hour shifts by about noon on Friday. They say those storm operations will continue until the storm and its impacts are over. IDOT and Illinois State Police are ready to act as well if needed.
MoDOT also explained that one issue with this storm is that they can’t put down any kind of pretreatment on roadways to try and prevent freezing when the temperatures do fall. That’s because all of the rain would just wash and pretreatment away.
We spoke earlier with the MoDOT and the Missouri Highway Patrol about dealing with this storm and what their concerns are. Here is some of what they told us:
“One of the big concerns – people need to remember to slow down and be careful because it will be rush hour and there will be a lot of people out there,” MODOT engineer Bob Becker said.
“We’re concerned with people sliding off in the ditches, being stuck there for long periods of time waiting for help to arrive,” MSHP’s Dallas Thompson added. Or the cold weather, just vehicles breaking down, people being on the shoulder of the roadway being stuck there waiting on help to arrive without any kind of heat.”
The largest concerns for MoDOT and the patrol clearly seem to be the extremely cold temperatures that will follow the precipitation from the storm.
