DelDOT works to clear Kent, Sussex roads

Experts mull environmental causes of storm

By Rachel Sawicki
Posted 1/5/22

Following near-whiteout conditions and shutdowns Monday, schools closed Tuesday, as well, out of an abundance of caution for road conditions, which the Delaware Department of Transportation is working hard to mitigate.

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DelDOT works to clear Kent, Sussex roads

Experts mull environmental causes of storm

Posted

Following near-whiteout conditions and shutdowns Monday, schools closed Tuesday, as well, out of an abundance of caution for road conditions, which the Delaware Department of Transportation is working hard to mitigate.

“Anything that melts could cause some black-ice conditions, which is the main concern, and we’ll obviously be on the lookout for that,” said C.R. McLeod, director of community relations for DelDOT, on Tuesday.

Mr. McLeod added that there were no major issues in Kent County on Tuesday and that plows were going back to uncover any spots they missed Monday, including routes with shoulders. He said a number of trucks and resources from New Castle County were sent down to Sussex, where several inches fell.

“There’s still going to be some snow-covered roadways that have hard-packed snow on them, like some of our local roads around Sussex County could definitely be slippery,” he said. “We’re trying to get out and get salt on them and help get them in as good a condition as possible, but we also have to let the air temperature come up. The sun also really helped to break up some of that hard pack to get those roads clear.”

Mr. McLeod said that, in an average snowstorm, DelDOT will use 10,000-12,000 tons of salt on the roads statewide to prevent refreezing. There were no exact numbers on how much salt had been used for Monday’s weather, but he predicted it was somewhere between 12,000-15,000 tons.

“We weren’t getting any air temperature assistance, where the ground stays warm enough where it’s not quite freezing up,” he said. “In this scenario, everything was getting colder, and that just made everything stick and freeze as soon as it hit the ground. Between that and the duration of the storm, it just really makes it difficult to stay on top of keeping the roads clear.”

While the Environmental Protection Agency reports that road salt can have negative impacts — contaminating drinking water, killing or endangering wildlife, increasing soil erosion and damaging private and public property — DelDOT has some strategies to reduce salt distribution, like brining the roads before a storm hits.

Conditions were not good for brining this week, however.

“We will brine roads if road conditions are dry, and the forecast does not call for the storm to begin as rain. We had rain over the weekend, so we did not brine this time,” Mr. McLeod said.

The brine used in preparation for a storm is a liquid salt mixture made of 23% rock salt and 77% water.

“In terms of cost and effectiveness, (salting) is really the best thing we’ve got in terms of dealing with winter precipitation. But we are obviously sensitive to the impacts of it, especially on our infrastructure. We’re putting this down on our roads and bridges, and it can definitely have an impact on that in terms of just wear and tear on the roads and in maintenance. But the thing that we have to balance is that the general public expects the roads to be clear.”

Mr. McLeod said that, after a storm, rock salt is only applied when it is warmer than 20 degrees, is not spread beyond traffic lanes to limit the scatter of salt off the road’s surface, is applied after a plow comes through and is put only on wet pavement, so it is not blown from the surface of a dry road.

Delaware’s Climate Action Plan notes that the most prominent climate-change impacts in Delaware are sea level rise, increased temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns, including extreme weather and flooding. Precipitation numbers include rain and snow, typically recorded as a cumulative amount over a given time ranging from a day to a year, in inches.

Dr. Daniel Leathers, state climatologist and a University of Delaware professor of meteorology, who also does snow-depth monitoring for DelDOT, said the temperature swing probably has something to do with global warming, but this storm was indicative of big jumps in the jet stream, which are rarely this extreme.

More snow is approaching Delaware at the end of the week and is predicted to be much less severe than Monday’s event. However, Dr. Leathers said that the heavy snow in Kent and Sussex counties won’t have completely melted by that time.

He added that it is too early to tell where the next snowfall will drop big amounts.

“The storm being placed 50 miles north or south can make a huge difference,” he said. “If that storm center had been 35 miles further to the north, (northern New Castle County) would have had 5 or 6 inches of snow.”

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