MoDOT crews forge through the ice

Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) crews worked around the clock starting in the wee hours of Saturday morning, January 14, to keep roads in usable condition.

Crews all over the county were divided into two 12-hours shifts, allowing salt trucks and snow plows to run continuously, making sure the roads stayed safe for drivers.

This week, Nodaway Country crews pretreated the roads with 22,000 gallons of a salt brine mixture, a tactic they call anti-icing. The decision to pretreat comes from upper administration and depends on the type of storm that is predicted.

MoDOT only pretreats roads when a storm is predicted to begin with ice. The brine mixture keeps the ice from bonding with the road surface.

If the storm is predicted to begin with snow, crews will not pretreat the roads because the brine mix would make the snow stick to the roads instead of blowing off of them, thus making road conditions worse.

Maryville MoDOT Maintenance Supervisor Lou Calvas stated that by using the pretreatment, only a few of the trucks needed their tires wrapped with chains for traction. But despite their best efforts, two MoDOT trucks slid off in ditches along county roads.

The Maryville MoDOT maintenance barn has 16 full-time employees and 18 employees who take shifts pushing snow and treating roads during storms. They laid around 500 tons of mix consisting of sand, rock chip and salt on the roads during the storm to aid in vehicle traction.

“I give caution to the public. When asked to stay off the road, please do so. The less traffic my snow plowers have to deal with makes it safer for everyone,” Calvas said.