FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – Florence residents are still dealing with the aftermath of the snow from Wednesday.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation Assistant District Maintenance Engineer, Lorena Pate, said the roads in Florence were first treated on Tuesday, before the snow hit, with brine and salt.
“Before the snow got here what we did is pretreating,” she said. “We took a brine mixture of salt and water and we pretreated our bridges and we did that the whole day before up to the storm.”
Pate said a certain mixture is used when pretreating snow storms and that SCDOT treated the snow while the storm was happening.
“When the storm got here, we still put out some brine, but we also put out some straight salt and then we also had to start putting out, we call it a ‘hot mix,’” she explained. “Which is brine with calcium chloride in it to help break down the snow so we did a lot of pretreating and then when the snow got here we started using the straight salt and the hot mix and started plowing.”
Pate said the department pretreated the busiest roads in the city first and then moved on to areas with less traffic. She said the SCDOT does not have enough trucks to cover the area so the department has to cover priority routes first.
“Interstates first and then primary routes are next along with routes to the hospital,” Pate said. “This morning after we got the interstate open we were out, for example, around McLeod and Carolinas and then on Palmetto Street trying to get those roads open and then we’ll work down the list from there.”
Florence County Emergency Management said on Wednesday that all four lanes on Highway 52 were iced over, which caused multiple accidents.
“Highway 52 in Florence is pretreated by two different counties so I’m not exactly sure when either county got out there, but I know it was done,” Pate said.
Pate said the South Carolina Department of Transportation is urging people to stay off the roads because of the possible black ice.
“A lot of these roads are still slushy and the temperature is good right now because it’s above freezing and the sun’s out so that’s helping melt the stuff too,” she said. “But tonight it’s going to get cold again and some of these roads are slushy and wet and there’s a good chance for ice, so people just need to be careful tonight if they have to go out for the risk of black ice.”
Pate said it’s still unclear when all of the snow will be cleared off all of the roads.
“We’re still treating and we’re still pushing snow,” said Pate. “We will probably do it into tomorrow and then, depending on the temperature rise and how much snow’s left, is depending on how far we go.”