Snow NC | NCDOT happy with roads after storm, but warns of refreezing overnight: ‘Very good operations’

RALEIGH, NC (WTVD) — Less than 24 hours after the first snowfall of the latest winter storm, NCDOT addressed members of the media for cumulative snowfall across the region.

“I was actually kind of surprised,” NCDOT maintenance engineer Doug McNeal said. “I didn’t think we’d be this far along. I was very concerned about the temperatures we had and the amount of snow we had. But it’s been a very good operation. We had a good day.”

McNeal said he and his crew put down nearly 240,000 gallons of brine ahead of the storm and were still using an unknown amount of salt Wednesday night.

“It was a pretty robust effort through the night to try to keep it in a good position so we could come in this morning when the temperatures rise and start cutting it off,” he said.

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McNeal’s division covers Wake, Durham, Person, Franklin, Granville, Vance and Warren counties.

“We’re very fortunate that the temperatures didn’t get very close to freezing. But we had good sunny weather, which certainly helps things along,” McNeal said. “So we were able to get through most of the primary routes and intermediate countries today.”

According to McNeal, there will be a refreeze overnight heading into Thursday and he is thankful that crews covered close to 70% of their area.

His region is covered by 14,800 lane-miles.

“That’s a lot of territory to cover,” McNeal added.

But the rare snow in the region could also prove a challenge to the agency’s response.

“It’s been 1,000 days, we had a lot of practice on this. There’s a lot of learning,” McNeal said. “There’s a lot of lessons to be learned. So we’ll definitely go back and have some additional conversations and be a little better next time.”

According to the division chief, those conversations include: “Coordinating and getting the plows to follow in the right order. It’s in this area where we sometimes go across five lanes or five lanes wide and have a good pattern there to get the snow up to the shoulder, I think we could make some improvements there, it’s an unusual scenario and we’re always willing to improve.

Additional areas of concern are shady areas and other spots that don’t get much sun that remained frozen Wednesday or will refreeze overnight.