The City of Evansville held a news conference Friday afternoon to discuss possible severe winter weather over the weekend.
City department heads and Mayor Stephanie Terry discussed what they’ve been doing to get ready.
This included the transportation department, central dispatch, public safety and others.
The Transportation Department has been pre-treating city streets with their own brine mixture to discourage ice from bonding to the street, said Todd Robertson executive director of Transportation & Services.
“That's one of the leading technologies, as far as treating and pre-treating of roads,” Robertson said. “So it helps to keep it from forming against the road, and then any kind of small elements help keeps it from forming into some sort of slick spot.”
He urges motorists to give his salt and plow crews the room to work and to leave early and drive slowly if you need to be on the roads.
Cliff Weaver, City and County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) director, acknowledges they’re not sure what’s coming this weekend.
“The forecast for this weather event has been difficult for the weather service to get a handle on because of the freezing line," he said. "There's a lot of moving parts to it, and we've been watching it for quite a while.”
He said aside from slippery roads, their main concern is keeping residents warm in case power is lost.
There will be several warming shelters open like The Evansville Rescue Mission and United Caring Services Shelter. During business hours, CK Newsome Center is open along with public libraries.
This is the first major Winter storm of Mayor Stephanie Terry’s administration. She said she knows city residents want their city departments to be ready.
“We rally everyone that's part of responding in these scenarios,” she said. “We've been in discussions for months, but here we are, and now we get to play out kind of the preparedness work that we've done.”
“We hope that we do a great job in making sure that the roadways are safe and that we're responding accordingly to any concerns that may arise through the power outages and other things in our inner city doing the storm.”
Other challenges include staging equipment from the new Street Maintenance Building on Harlan Avenue.
Robertson is also concerned that a sustained weather event will tap all the available staff hours for road clearing.
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