First Snow of the Season Tests New Equipment in St. Charles

Street crews started pretreating streets in St. Charles early on Thursday morning as the first snow of the winter season started to fall.

The city purchased a salt brine maker and equipment for the trucks to distribute it earlier this year.

The salt brine, a mixture of water and rock salt, prevents a bond from forming between the snow and pavement when it's applied before a storm. This is the first time the city has been able to use the new equipment, said Daryl Hampel, street supervisor.

"We went out and treated bridges and overpasses and treated some of the arterial routes like Zumbehl," Hampel said. 'It actually did help this morning."

Hampel said the arterial routes like Muegge and Elm streets, were clear by 7 or 8 a.m. He said they didn't have too many instances of "black ice" or flash freezing.

Superintendent Randy Charles said in the early hours, the roads were slick which is why he decided to call off school.

"It was snowing faster than anything could work," he said.

After school activities were canceled, but the district still intended to hold the school board meeting at 7:30 p.m.

Charles said he will wait and see what happens overnight before deciding what to do about school tomorrow.

Forecasters have said snow is expected to continue Thursday evening but end by midnight. Temperatures are expected to dip to a low of 20°F. 

Icy Interstates Lead to Delays

crews have been out all morning pretreating, plowing and de-icing roads and interstates in St. Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson Counties. 

Despite the early efforts, roads were a mess this morning, causing a rush hour that lasted until around 11 a.m. 

Ed Hassinger, MoDOT District Engineer for the St. Louis region tells Patch a major factor in the morning's issues was the amount of traffic on the roads.

"I know people are not happy with rush hour this morning, but really the issue this morning was the snow and ice came at just the right time. With the treatment process it has to be continual. Crews got the first hour to melt off and then rush hour hit and and crews couldn't get back on the roads quickly enough," Hassinger explained. "Rush hour hits, traffic gets backed up and our trucks are stuck in the same traffic as everyone else."

Hassinger said despite crews coming in at midnight, and over 200 trucks running non-stop, when a few drivers began getting stuck or having accidents, it delayed the entire treatment process and caused more problems.

"With the snow removal process, you put salt down and it melts the snow, but as the snow melts, it dilutes the salt which becomes less effective. It (salt) doesn't melt any more snow, so you have to be continually making rounds," Hassinger tells Patch. "When we can't get that next round down, then everything turns to ice and that is what happened to us this morning on the interstates. Once you get behind you just can't recover and what we're doing now is recovering."

(Did you get stuck in Thursday morning's traffic? Tell us in the comment box below this article.)

Hassinger said it took until almost 11 a.m. for traffic to start moving on area roads. He said, it was essentially the same situation across St. Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson counties. He said it was "just kind of uniform across the metro area."

There were, however, a few problem spots this morning. Hassinger said Highway 40 around Clayton Road was one, and Highway 40 at the Maryville Ceter and Mason Road exits was another. Police even closed that stretch of highway briefly Thursday morning because cars simply could not get traction due to the snow and ice. 

"We have some hills there and some trucks and rear-wheel drive cars could not navigate. So that jammed up and once again our trucks could not get there," Hassinger explained. He also said drivers had some problems on the roads in the City of St. Louis. "We never saw any relief until now."

MoDOT crews will continue working throughout the day with 200 trucks running Road crews are broken into two shifts, so it takes about 500 people to run trucks around the clock, according to MoDOT. 

"People still need to be careful. There is still ice on ramps and we are expecting snow squalls throughout the night," Hassinger warned. "We'll be out throughtout the day and possibly into the night, until we get the roads back to a dry conditions. Hopefulling things will get better this afternoon, at least that's what we're planning for."