Winter weather’s coming. Here’s how Fort Worth and Tarrant County are preparing roads
When Tim Moreno, Fort Worth’s superintendent of street operations, got the notification that winter weather was on its way, one thought came to his mind: “We have to prepare.”
Cold will snap across the North Texas region Wednesday, bringing rain, sleet, snow and potentially dangerous roads along with it. Ahead of the weather, officials with the state, county and city, like Moreno, are working to prepare the roads for the possible outcomes, whatever they may be.
The weather event anticipated this week creeps up on the anniversary of last year’s winter storm that wreaked havoc on Texas residents and the state’s infrastructure. Across the state, 246 people died — most from hypothermia — during prolonged power outages in February. Four days before the crisis with the electric grid began, six people died in a pileup crash of more than 100 vehicles on Interstate 35W in Fort Worth.
Juan Cadena, operations officer with the city’s Street and Stormwater Operations office, said last year’s winter storm has prepared the city to handle the upcoming weather conditions. For example, this year the city will have its warming stations in place, whereas last year there was a scramble to get them running. He said the city has also figured out tricks to help keep its salt-sand mixture from freezing by bumping the salt content up to 10% instead of its original 5%.
As he stood beside a 500-ton pile of sand-and-salt mixture at one of the city’s environmental management facilities Monday afternoon, Moreno said preparation for this week’s weather wasn’t much different than what officials did last year before the winter storm hit. The bad weather coming up is only going to last a few days, and Moreno said they have time to react and wait and see what happens the rest of the season.
“Winter Storm Uri really scared everybody last year,” he said. “That’s not where we’re at right now.”
Across Tarrant County, most of the road preparation for what may come is in the form of saltwater brine and salt-sand treatments. A spokesperson for Fort Worth’s transportation and public works department said Monday that teams would begin brining roads on Tuesday with the Texas Department of Transportation.
TxDOT’s preparation began Sunday as the department works to brine the roads in Fort Worth’s district — which includes Tarrant, Wise, Hood, Johnson, Erath, Jack, Palo Pinto, Parker and Somervell counties — spokesperson Val Lopez said in a text. TxDOT will have 200 staff and vehicles working 24/7 shifts when the weather comes to town.
The city will have sanding crews on standby starting Wednesday, and city transportation and public works spokesperson Jeffrey Allen said in an email the city can send out up to 30 trucks at a time to work 12-hour shifts, each carrying 6-10 cubic yards of sand-salt mixture.
Fort Worth’s stockpile to address the potential weather conditions includes 7,750 tons of materials: 6,000 tons of sand, 1,500 tons of sand-salt mixture and 250 tons of salt, Allen said. Bridges, overpasses and roadways over culverts are usually coated with the mixture first. The city’s priorities also include a dozen steep hills like the one at Roaring Springs and drive-thrus for local hospitals’ emergency rooms so ambulances can get in easily, Cadena said.
Allen said the city is partnering with TxDOT to make sure “high-priority roadways” are treated with TxDOT focusing on interstates and the city focusing on the rest. The city is also doing a pretreatment like TxDOT and pretreating limited roads with salt water brine.
Rain is anticipated for Wednesday ahead of snow on Thursday. If the rain washes away any treatment before the weather gets worse, Allen said, crews will treat the roads again. Lopez said TxDOT would have crews on hand to address any changes in the weather.
Allen said he and his team didn’t anticipate road closures, but that the police department would be the one to handle it if they occurred.
Each precinct in Tarrant County has a director of field operations who helps maintain roads in its unincorporated areas, which make up somewhere between 17-20% of the whole county, said Joe Trammel, Precinct 1’s director of field operations. The rest of the roadways in incorporated areas fall under the responsibility of the cities.
Preparation in Precinct 1 will begin Wednesday night when the weather begins to come in, Trammel said. His team has around 1,000 pounds of manufactured sand and another 5,000 pounds of ice melt they can spread to help mitigate any road issues.
Fort Worth’s Emergency Management Office is coming together for 24/7 operation beginning Wednesday at 7 a.m. until the weather threat is over, Kristen O’Hare, a spokesperson for the Fort Worth Fire Department’s Office of Emergency Management, said Monday. The office anticipates potential snow and ice melting by Saturday.
The city has been working with its communications team, the police department, fire department, and MedStar, O’Hare said. Safety messaging has already begun to notify residents about what they need to do to be safe while driving.
With the flux of weather conditions, O’Hare said that her team has had to think “12 steps ahead” for what could happen.
Recommendations from TxDOT for driving in winter weather include slowing down, keeping distance, being wary of snow removal crews and being careful on bridges, overpasses, ramps and shaded areas. If your car starts to slide, TxDOT recommends easing off the gas or brakes and steering into the direction you’re sliding until your car has traction again.
Ready.gov advises drivers to keep their gas tank full and have an emergency kit with items like sand, jumper cables and blankets on hand.
Another piece of advice from Ready.gov: “Stay off roads if at all possible.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 5:10 PM.
