NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Artic Blast is expected to bring several inches of snow to Nashville by Friday.
In preparation, the Nashville Department of Transportation (NDOT) started pre-treating roads by spreading brine earlier this week.
“We’ve had about a week ahead of time on this one, so we have had plenty of time to prepare,” said Phillip Jones, the Assistant Director of NDOT. “We have a primary route, secondary route, and post-secondary route, so we started treating those routes starting Tuesday, which we will have everything finished up today. The trucks [will be] switched back over with granular salt put on them and stored inside before the event starts tomorrow.”
Over the past few days, crews have added brine to 2,475 miles of roadways listed as snow removal priority routes and over 5,800 miles of roadways in Davidson County, including secondary snow and post-secondary snow routes.
The proactive brine works to prevent snow from sticking.
“They get one round of salt brine,” Jones explained. “That kind of helps from making that bond of snow and ice to the asphalt. It makes it easier for us to get the snow removed off of the asphalt. Our goal is to get a bare surface road.”
On Friday, at approximately 4 a.m., NDOT crews will be back on the roads with forty snowplow trucks.
“That is one of our new 19 salt trucks that we have in our fleet,” Jones said as he showed News 2 the new vehicle. “Very proud to say in my thirty years here, this is the best equipment we’ve had at any given time.”
Officials told News 2 that Friday’s priority and goal will be to keep the roads leading to hospitals, emergency routes, and transit routes as clear as possible.
If temperatures drop below 20 degrees, NDOT has 40,000 gallons of calcium chloride ready to distribute over the roads, heating up the snow.
Both the brine storage tanks and salt bins are filled to capacity.
NDOT also said that salting routes have been established. Unlike last year, any requests for salting will be submitted through Hub Nashville.
“That’s where we differ than we ever have in the past,” added Jones. “We’ve went from call ins to we’ve got our routes set. We’ve got our primary, secondary, and post-secondary. We will be working with emergency services like your fire and police, but other than that, we already have a snow plan together.”
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Around this time last year, Nashville accumulated 7.6 inches of snow, followed by ice on the roads.
NDOT officials told News 2 they are planning to address this early on.
“Sunday looks like we are going to get some sunshine and some melt,” Jones explained. “So yes, then we may have to deal with some black ice Sunday night [into] Monday just depends on how much is left. Anytime we are removing snow, typically we are trying to remove the snow towards the downside grade of any street so we don’t have to deal with that issue.”
Jones advises Nashvillians to stay home on Friday and stay off the roads so the trucks can treat the roads properly and keep the streets clear for emergency workers.
