DENVER — Plows are on standby across the Denver metro for the first snow of the season.
“We have the trucks ready. We have the drivers ready. We have the materials ready, and we're ready to go,” said Nancy Kuhn, director of communications for Denver’s Department of Transportation & Infrastructure (DOTI).
Kuhn said the first crews will arrive at 10 p.m. Friday and assess the conditions of bridges and overpasses, as well as other trouble spots.
“We get asked a lot, 'Will you pre-treat the roads?' Pre-treating is rare in Denver,” said Kuhn.
By Saturday, the plan is to have 45 to 50 plows ready to go citywide.
DOTI crews use two materials to treat city streets: a liquid deicer and a granular material. On downtown streets, Kuhn explained you’ll mostly see liquid treatment because of air quality efforts.
“If you have a street with a center line, that's the type of street that this plow would go down,” said Kuhn.
Kuhn added this likely isn’t a storm where residential plows will be used.
“We're going to start to look at it when you get to that 5, 6 [inch] range of snow where we know that's going to accumulate on the streets, not just fall,” Kuhn told Denver7.
DOTI drivers work 12-hour shifts.
In neighboring Arapahoe County, 12 trucks are on standby in town, while there are royghly 10 more out east, according to a county spokesperson.
The county plan prioritizes major arterials first, followed by fire stations and medical facilities.
Materials to treat Arapahoe County roads are also ready. The county's road and bridge operations crew said the treatment is made up of mostly sodium chloride with a mix of calcium chloride and magnesium chloride. There’s no actual sand in it. The mixture will melt snow and ice down to -20 degrees Fahrenheit.
