DENVER (KDVR) — The Colorado Department of Transportation shared how it prepared for the snowstorm expected to last through Wednesday night.
Large plows were to start in Denver at 12 p.m. CDOT said it will have a full shift of snowplow drivers starting at 4 p.m. They said 105 drivers will be pretreating bridges and overpasses.
Due to cold temperatures, CDOT officials are concerned deicing treatments may not be as effective as usual.
“Right now, we don’t think that they’re going to be that effective,” Mike Willard said. “In this case, we’re expecting a lot of snow quickly. So in order to keep costs down, we’ll probably ease back on our materials usage, and then we’ll plow, plow, plow, until we get the roads clear, and then we’ll start in with the aggregates and deicer.”
CDOT will be focusing on what’s called the echelon approach, where three or four plows work side-by-side on major highways. They hope to keep lanes cleared for the morning commute and then ramp up deicing treatments closer to the end of the storm.
“Mother Nature gave us snow on a cold day,” CDOT Executive Director Shoshana Lew said. “So we’re going to rely on constant rotations of the plow operators to clear the snow.”
Denver residential snowplows
The City of Denver said that this is what you can expect from residential snowplows:
- When deployed, the residential plows will take a single pass down the center of each side street to keep streets passable and prevent deep ice ruts.
- The plows will shave the top few inches of snowpack off the street and will not expose bare pavement.
- The 4×4 pickup trucks with plows do not carry deicing material.