On Wennesday, Chambers County EMA, announced an update on current Road Conditions.
Interstate is still bad in opelika, roads still icy, slushy, or icy patches but traffic was still backed up for miles an hour ago. The Chambers portion of 85 is messy with icy spots.
Some roads that have seen sun have some improvement. Other roads are still completely covered with 2 inches of snow or a sheet of ice where the roads are covered, shaded by a canopy of trees.(Hopewell Rd, Judge Brown Rd, etc)
Im waiting on a call back from county engineer and others as to the travel advisory but I don’t think we’ll be lifting it.
Its a difficult decision: to lift the advisory means ALL roads are passable. But ALL roads are NOT passable. Some are still completely covered in 2 inches of snow that are like a sheet of ice. The ones that are passable doesn’t mean they’re free of ice, it just means they’re not completely covered like a sheet of ice.
Then there’s passable or safe. Passable doesn’t necessarily mean safe. Safe for who? Young drivers, elder drivers, all drivers, experienced drivers, inexperienced drivers? Safe for what vehicle, what speed, easy braking, hard braking, which road?
It’s 235pm and we just reached 33 degrees. If we get to 35 like my app shows, or 37 like the NWS map shows (highly unlikely), it will happen between 3 and 5. By 6pm we will be back at 32 and continue to drop from there to 19 degrees by morning.
Anything left on the roads, snow or water from snow melt, will freeze again this evening and overnight. So all the roads still covered in snow will be like a sheet of ice again in the morning until well after lunch time. All the roads that have improved to “passable” will have black ice and not just patches here and there. Some roads will still have one lane that will be like a sheet of ice because less melting in that lane.
What we see. Roads running East to West have very little to no improvement and are still covered in snow, thus are ice underneath. Roads running north to south have melting and thus some improvement but there are still icy spots and even bridges with one lane still covered in ice while the other lane is melted. But no they are not “fine, or clear” like I’ve read in other posts comments.
For the roads that are partially melted, 4wd seems do better at gaining traction. Smaller vehicles, 2wd and all wheel drives are still spinning and sliding and having a difficult time. But with good skill, driving slow, being mindful of icy spots, and not hard braking, some of these vehicleshave faired well in the drive to wherever they had to go. But even those using 4wd are driving 30mph, leaving a 2 to 3 car length distance between them and any vehicle in front of them, are not not hard braking. (Obviously these are mostly our crews out working and assessing but some citizens have been successful)
Roads running east to west are still covered in snow and like a sheet of ice. Roads running north to south are partially melted.
Are the roads safe? Depends
Are the roads passable? Depends
Depends on the vehicle, the driver, driver experience in driving on roads in these conditions and depends on which road it is.
