Catoosa County Public Works focuses on secondary roads

While everything is moving smoothly on highways in Catoosa County, the secondary roads are a different story.

“We’ve pretreated and have most of our major roads in great shape and so we are focusing now on our secondary roads. Those are the slick spots this morning,” said Jeremy Bryson, a Catoosa County Public Works inspector.

Akins road was closed overnight and Wednesday morning, but reopened by the afternoon.
Salt could be seen on the road. Bryson says a lot of factors go into deciding whether a road should be closed.

“There is a very steep hill there and a lot of subdivision and traffic on that road. The decision is better to go ahead and just go ahead and close that to try and prevent the folks that don’t live on that road, maybe accessing it another way so you don’t have to use such a steep hill,” Bryson said.

Crews put down 20,000 gallons of brine and about 200 tons of salt and sand in preparation for the storm. They say they’ll continue to treat what is needed throughout the day.

“We usually prepare for any type of event. We deal with a lot of different kinds, obviously we get a couple of inches of snow. You get snows like this where it is enough and sticks to the road and causes a lot of travel problems. So we are equipped to handle pretty much whatever comes and we tend to see a couple of different events a year,” he said.

Bryson advises people to stay inside, but if they do venture out on the roads to use extreme caution.
But is hoping the with the sun out, it will help with the melting.

“We don’t expect a lot of that, but when it does melt hopefully it will help improve the conditions,” Bryson said.