DOH changes road treatment policy

The Department of Highways acknowledges it dropped the ball in Cabell County on Black Friday.  There were several accidents on I-64 near the Cabell/Wayne County line between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. that day, but there were no highway department trucks treating the roads.

“We typically as a division have highway crews out when we have some kind of a weather advisory,” said Spokesman Brent Walker of the West Virginia Department of Transportation. “That particularly evening there wasn’t any weather advisory from the National Weather Service.”

The black ice formed on bridges and overpasses in the early morning hours without warning.  Adding to the situation was inexperience in the shop.

“An equipment operator was filling in for a supervisor and received the call, but was a little slow to get crews out,” Walker said. “What we’re doing moving forward whenever we see there could be a winter event–not necessarily a major winter event–even if it’s rain that could be freezing rain, we’ll have a skeleton two-man crew out with a full truck of salt driving the interstate.”

Walker says the practice of waiting for a weather advisory from the National Weather Service will no longer be the policy.  They’ll have people manning the salt trucks when there’s even a hint of any kind of even which could turn icy with only a slight drop in temperature.