AFTER THE STORM: Roads cleared; spring can’t come soon enough
NorthCoastNOW
It took all day Sunday, but most major roads in Lorain County appeared ready for today’s commute.
Using as many as 14 crews at a time, the Ohio Department of Transportation did all it could to counteract Mother Nature’s most vicious attack of the season.
“It was an all hands on deck situation,” said Brian Stacy, a spokesman for ODOT’s third district.
Anyone with a commercial driver’s license — including managers — was out in a plow this weekend, according to Stacy.
And for a while, even this huge effort looked like it wouldn’t be enough.
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| CHUCK HUMEL / CHRONICLE |
| Kent Board, 15, of Elyria, takes a time-out from shoveling out a friend’’s car to look at the sculpted snow cornice on the Concord Street home of Larry and Regina Bell. |
To combat the hard, packed snow and the layers of ice, crews had to add calcium chloride to the salt to help “burn away the hard-packed stuff,” Stacy said.
But ODOT also got a hand from the weather.
With highs above freezing and open sunlight, the weather helped melt some snow that otherwise would have been problematic.
“If it had stayed cloudy, the salt wouldn’t have been able to melt all the snow, and it would have turned to ice by Monday morning,” Stacy said.
The warm weather allowed ODOT to gradually reduce the number of crews it had on the road, down to six Sunday night.
The National Weather Service predicts a chance of flurries for today and Tuesday, which was not music to Stacy’s ears.
“I think everyone is ready for spring,” he said.
But for now, it’s staying winter.
This last storm dumped as much as 14 inches of snow around Lorain County and more than 20 inches on Columbus, while near-blizzard conditions shut down highways and stranded air travelers over the weekend.
The Ohio Emergency Management Agency continued to monitor the cleanup around the state, but no counties had declared an emergency, nor were there any requests for state assistance.
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, which shut down Saturday, reopened Sunday but flight delays and cancellations were common as airlines tried to get their schedules back on track, spokesman Todd Payne said.
One traffic death was blamed on the weather Friday. Three men in the Cleveland area and one in the Columbus area died Saturday while shoveling snow, authorities said.
About 2,160 traffic accidents were reported to the State Highway Patrol, with 215 involving injuries.
A warm-up isn’t expected until Tuesday, when the forecast calls for temperatures in the lower 40s, the weather service said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Contact Michael Baker at 329-7128 or mbaker@chroniclet.com.
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Filed by NorthCoastNOW March 9th, 2008 in Top Stories.
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