Ohio Department of Transportation Highway Technician Travis Ball fills his truck with brine Sunday at the Belpre Outpost. Area road crews have been out during the recent snow working to clear local roadways. (Photo Provided)

PARKERSBURG — Road crews in West Virginia and Ohio continue to work on getting local roadways clear and open.

The West Virginia Department of Transportation and the Ohio Department of Transportation had multiple crews and equipment out Sunday and Monday clearing off and treating local roadways to make them passable to the public.

Michael C. Daley, transportation district manager for WVDOT District 3, said Monday crews “were staying busy busy busy.”

The National Weather Service in Charleston has issued an extreme cold warning for the area until noon today. Dangerously cold wind chills as low as -17 are expected and could result in hypothermia or frostbite if precautions are not taken, the weather service reported.

Crews have been working but the colder temperatures are preventing the roads from really thawing out which Daley believes will take a week or so.

“We are plowing with our plow trucks as well as our motor graders,” Daley said. “We are working the primary roads, the secondary blacktops taken care of first and treated.”

As of Monday, it was still snowing heavily in some locations.

“It is just going to be ongoing throughout the event,” Daley said. “We are working 24 hours a day at 12-hour shifts.

“We have been doing this since last Thursday to pretreat with a salt brine and get materials on the roadway before the storm came in. We have been working right through the event.”

WVDOT has 110 trucks throughout the district which covers Calhoun, Jackson, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, Wirt and Wood counties. They have an operator per shift so around 220 people have been working on various pieces of equipment.

The WVDOT handles all of the state routes, U.S. routes, interstates, county routes and orphan roads. The expressways (the U.S. and West Virginia routes) are the first priority. The second priority is blacktop roads. The third priority roads are the orphan roads followed by the gravel roads.

Daley said crews are dealing with the usual equipment issues they have when equipment is running 24 hours a day. They have mechanics out working on repairs to help keep them running and out on the roads.

With the snow and rain hitting the area at different times Sunday and into Monday, ice has become a problem in working the roads, Daley said.

“It is all ice,” he said. “The only thing that will cut it is the heavier equipment along with the calcium chloride that we put to the roads to try and help it.”

Once the chemical in spots is used up it refreezes.

“It is something you have to stay on top of all of the time,” Daley said.

The WVDOT is working to make the roads safe to travel on. They cannot guarantee clear roads.

“I know we have some roads that are packed in,” he said. “We are getting to those just as quickly as we can.

“The weather is going to have to work with us. It will take three to four days, at a minimum (to get most of the roads treated and passable).”

The WVDOT is working with area first responders to get many of the main routes passable so they can respond to different areas in the district and keep them as safe as possible.

“It is going to be an ongoing work for all of us to help the general public,” Daley said.

ODOT District 10 Public Information Officer Ashley Rittenhouse said Monday afternoon it appeared the snow had stopped, but they are still out in the area doing cleanup.

ODOT District 10 covers Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Noble, Vinton and Washington counties in Ohio. Crews covered 3,960 miles within the district and 590 in Washington County alone, she said.

Crews had been working 12-hour shifts for a couple days concluding at midnight Monday.

“Our crews will resume their normal shifts Tuesday morning (at 7 am),” she said. “Our folks have been hard at it.

“It has been all-hands-on-deck.”

They had their regular people, seasonal employees and auxiliary employees to help from other departments to get them through this event. She wasn’t sure of the exact number of people they had out, but it was everyone available that they could bring in.

She is reminding people to keep an eye on the snow level emergencies levels issued by the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. Part of Sunday and Monday the county was on a Level 3 snow emergency and it was downgraded to a Level 2 Monday afternoon.

“Overall, as far as the state routes, our folks have done a great job,” Rittenhouse said. “Fortunately, we did not get as much snow as was predicted.

“The really cold temperatures really work against our material. It becomes less effective the colder it gets. We are glad we did not get as much snow as predicted.”

Once people are able to get out and moving, she is advising people to give themselves some extra time to get where they are going.

“We continue to ask people to keep watching for our crews out there as they are working,” Rittenhouse said.

She said ODOT has had 38 plows hit so far this winter season statewide.

Daley reminded people if they had to be out on the roads to give crews plenty of room to work. They have been getting calls about getting roads cleared out, but they have roads they have to get. If the snow starts up again, they might have to go back and clear some roads again in order to keep traffic moving.

“We are getting there just as fast as we can with what resources we do have,” Daley said. “Our employees are working around the clock endlessly.”

They have a little time to go home and rest some before they have to head back out again.

“It is going to be ongoing,” Daley said. “I want to thank the public for helping us out through this event, being patient and working with us.

“The biggest thing is if you can stay at home, stay safe and we are going to get to you just as soon as we can.”