West Virginia (WOAY) The West Virginia Division of Highways (WVDOH) reports that around-the-clock plowing and salting on interstates and other first-priority routes have made most major roads passable across the mountain state.
The progress has allowed crews to shift to priority two and three routes statewide.
Road crews are following their standard storm response.
They focus first on interstates and major highways to keep those routes passable for cautious drivers.
WVDOH categorizes all of the roads it maintains into four priority levels.
Crews address routes as conditions allow, returning to priority one routes if snowfall or ice redevelops.
- Priority 1 routes include interstate, expressway, National Highway System, and all other United States and West Virginia routes. Some Priority 1 routes also include high-traffic county routes.
- Priority 2 routes are all other school bus routes that are not considered Priority 1.
- Priority 3 routes are the remaining routes, not including park and forest routes.
- Priority 4 routes are park and forest routes.
Ahead of the storm, crews began pretreating roads with a mixture of brine and beet juice to help prevent snow from bonding to the pavement and improve the effectiveness of salt and plowing.
By Sunday, most priority one routes were passable.
However, plunging temperatures brought a new challenge…Ice.
Ice is harder to remove than snow and less responsive to salt, prompting crews to bring in road graders for heavier ice and snow removal.
As of Monday, crews have shifted focus from priority one routes and are actively working priority two and three roads using a combination of graders and snowplows.
