ODOT To Treat Roads For Round 2 Of Winter Weather

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is preparing to treat roads for another round of winter weather after the first wave led to a huge number of wrecks Thursday morning.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported that troopers responded to more than 100 crashes in the Oklahoma City area by 8:30 a.m. Thursday. They worked 71 non-injury wrecks, 33 injury collisions, and one deadly crash in which a 27-year-old was killed.

Meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Police Department said officers responded to 38 injury-causing accidents from midnight to 8:30 a.m. Thursday. There were so many crashes that police had to suspend going to non-injury wrecks to prioritize injury collisions.

"The freezing fog came in [Thursday] morning, I think, caught a lot of people off guard," Bryce Boyer, public information officer for the ODOT, said. "You know, freezing fog really impacts those elevated surfaces. So a lot of crashes we saw [Thursday] morning were on bridges, overpasses."

ODOT had about two dozen trucks in the metro area treating those elevated roadways, Thursday morning, according to Boyer.

"We couldn't put down a ton of pretreatment just because with how warm the roads were and then the snow on top of that kind of made the roads a little bit too wet to put down a ton of pre-treatment," Boyer said. "So we did kind of have to treat the weather as it came in."

With more wet snow anticipated late Thursday and freezing temperatures expected overnight, slick conditions could develop for the Friday morning commute. To improve the roads, Boyer said ODOT planned to deploy 15 trucks in Oklahoma County, another 15 in Canadian County, and a couple more in Cleveland County starting around midnight.

"Luckily, we had some warmer temperatures [Thursday], so some of the salt and sand we laid down on the roads that haven't washed away will still be effective when the next wave moves through," Boyer said. "And then as it comes down, we'll be right there with it, treating as we can."