MoDOT and IDOT prepare the road for winter weather on Friday night

ST. LOUIS – Road crews on either side of the river are getting ready to battle the winter weather to reach the St. Louis on Friday night.

Thousands of tons of salt at St. Louis is waiting to be used. City officials say 35 to 40 city trucks will land on St. Louis when the storm moved in. The city did not pre-treat due to the possibility of rain before snow and wash away the treatment.

Road crews warmed up for the storm last week when a wave of winter weather hit the area. MoDOT has been fixing the roads ahead of this storm. I told the modot workers spent the last two days in brine. MoDOT will have its full team to respond to the storm. That means about 200 MoDOT trucks could appear on the road. However, MoDOT warned that opening times could be longer than usual because of staff shortages due to rotations and illnesses including COVID.

Across the river, Joe Monroe with IDOT said his team pre-processed the bridges on Thursday and will handle some more construction as well. Monroe said he no longer has a pre-treatment plan. Instead, he will ask teams to put the salt down when the rain is expected to start before the snow. He said the salt mixed with rainwater would form essentially a brine for another course of treatment. Monroe expected 140 to 150 trucks out of the storm.

“We’re in pretty good shape with the forecast,” Monroe said. “Not a blizzard of snow or, you know, really cold temperatures. It’s like coming… because it’s coming from Friday to Saturday night, that helps us out. There’s a lot of things that allow us a little more flexibility than if it comes in on a Monday morning or a Monday evening. ”

Monroe said he’s also experienced some staffing shortages, including workers dealing with COVID, but he’s confident his teams will be able to successfully deal with the storm.