TULSA, Okla. — The forecast shows mostly sleet and freezing rain over the next two days. City crews say they are preparing differently for this winter storm than the last.
Since this system won’t bring significant snowfall, they plan to use their salt and brine trucks rather than plows.
Tim McCorkell, manager for Tulsa's street maintenance, says salt brine will be more beneficial for treating roads for this storm.
“It will keep the sleet from bonding to the roadway. So it will come off easier as it warms up,” McCorkell said.
Crews will be working 12-hour shifts over the next few days. The first crew will deploy around midnight on Wednesday. They will first treat bridges and overpasses. A second crew will be on stand-by around 2 a.m.
“We’ll be running about 55 trucks on this event and we have about 85 tons of salt in stock at this time,” McCorkell said.
They have a few trucks that are down from the last winter storm but McCorkell says that shouldn’t impact this event. His only concern right now is the possibility of freezing rain.
“It’s hard to keep it melted with the salt, although we will apply salt as we need to,” McCorkell said.
McCorkell says he is also worried freezing rain could cause a build-up of ice on power lines and trees causing them to break and block roadways.
“If you don’t have to go out, please don’t go out.”
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