PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — You might have heard about the deadly 130-car pileup during a winter storm in Texas on Thursday. Transportation experts in our region want to reiterate some safety tips for when ice hits the blacktop.
Conditions deteriorate rapidly in an ice storm, especially on untreated roads. PennDOT's Brad Rudolph said crews will be spreading and spraying salt continuously over the next few days to keep highways wet and passable.
"We're highly concerned about slick conditions," he said, "sleet and freezing rain mixing with snow."
Rudolph said lessons were learned years ago when an accident left people stranded for hours on a snowy section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
"So we will institute commercial vehicle restrictions on certain corridors based on the conditions," he explained. "What we've learned is commercial vehicle accidents typically involve longer closure times."
Those commercial restrictions are implemented out of caution, and Rudolph knows they can be a disruption for people, but he insists it's necessary. "It takes longer to remove these vehicles from these large crashes," he said.
NJDOT's Steve Schapiro said they'll be ready in the Garden State as well with plenty of available resources.
"So we have DOT vehicles that can both spread salt and plow," he said. "We also have contractors that are just salt spreaders and then contractors that are plows and salt spreaders. So we will call in the resources that we need. We always plan for the worst in a forecast and hope for the best."
As with their Pennsylvania counterparts, there is a lot of preparation, planning and organization that goes into making New Jersey's highways and interstates safe during a winter storm.
"We have facilities throughout the state and each crew has an assigned route or roads that they'll maintain. It might be a portion of a road. It might be several different state highways and they go through, treat or plow that section of roadway that they are assigned," he said.
"They'll continue to go over that and make sure that it is cleared during a storm. That way, we have broken up all the state highways in such a way that we know that everything is being cleared and treated."
Jana Tidwell, with AAA Mid-Atlantic, said it's smart to fill the gas tank and pack an emergency bag before hitting the road in a winter storm.
"Obviously the usual staples: jumper cables, flashlight, first aid kit," she detailed. "But then in the winter months, some extra blankets, hats, scarves, gloves, an extra layer of clothing."
Tidwell said the combination of sleet and freezing rain could turn a routine trip into a disaster, and in that case, it doesn't matter what you drive.
"Four wheel drive, all wheel drive, that's not going to help you during an ice event," she said. "Nothing is going to help you get traction on ice."
And Schapiro added the less people on the roads, the better.
"We advise people to stay off the roads if they can," he said. "If you must be out there, please slow down. That's the most important thing. Give our crews plenty of room to do their work, stay back and just plan a little extra travel time because road conditions may be treacherous."
He also urged drivers to make sure they have plenty of gas.