Area road crews chase snow squalls
One after the other, bands of snow showers blew through the county Tuesday. The squalls covered roadways on and off and kept road crews busy for most of the day.
“We’re here for as long as it keeps going,” PennDOT’s Armstrong County assistant maintenance manager Bill Olinger said late Tuesday afternoon. “They’re calling for heavier squalls later.”
Olinger said crews were out at 4 a.m. yesterday plowing and applying antiskid materials on main and secondary roads.
“It’s been business as usual. All the roads are getting treated,” Olinger said. “The priority is first the main roads and then secondary roads. They’re all in good shape — open and passable.”
Olinger wants to remind motorists to slow down, leave early and give themselves more time to get there during a snowstorm.
In Kittanning Borough, street department foreman Jim Mechling was in between squalls.
He said crews had finished plowing and salting streets by the end of their usual shift at 3:30 p.m. All of the borough’s streets were in good condition then, Mechling said.
“They’re calling for an additional inch of snow this afternoon and another one inch in the evening,” Mechling said. “When the police or 911 calls me and tells me the streets are getting bad again, I’ll send a crew out.”