The wet heavy snow has been tough for the road crews to deal with today. Delta County Road Commission Manager Jody Norman says that as of this afternoon, the highways are in “reasonable” shape, and the side roads are being attacked when crews have time. He tells the Radio Results Network that the aftermath of this storm will stretch into tomorrow.
“The traffic pounds it down on the road, and it’s gonna start freezing up late tonight,” Norman told RRN News from the seat of a plow. “So it’s gonna be pretty ugly tomorrow morning. But we’ll be out, bright and early, at 3:00 tomorrow morning.”
He says the crews that are out now will end their day at 5:00, the night crews will follow them, and then the full crews will be back at 3 a.m.
As of 2:00 this afternoon, just over eight inches of wet, heavy snow had fallen in Escanaba, with lesser amounts of just over three inches in the eastern part of the county near Garden Corners.
In Marquette, Michael Harrington with the Marquette County Road Commission is also concerned about tonight’s rain.
“With snow, it doesn’t really matter if we have to plow two inches or a foot,” he told WJMN Local Three News. “It takes relatively the same amount of time, equal amount of trucks. When the rains come, though, it’s a different story. We can’t salt everything, which is how you’d have to get rid of that ice. The heavily-traveled roads and the secondary roads are slippery until Mother Nature helps us.”
