A cold spell is settling into the Puget Sound, and city and state officials are getting ready. Plummeting temperatures mean the city and state’s department of transportation crews are hitting the road.
“We are definitely getting prepared,” said Mafara Hobson, a spokesperson for the Seattle Department of Transportation.
SDOT trucks loaded up with deicer and salt Thursday evening. When temperatures drop to freezing, SDOT starts treating arterial roads with deicer. If the roads are wet, the crews will treat the roads with a combination of salt and deicer.
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Washington Department of Transportation crews started monitoring road conditions Thursday, and will continue to do that through the Christmas holiday. They start pretreating roads when the temperature hits 35 degrees.
It says not only do people need to prepare for ice, they should also get ready for traffic.
“We know that a lot of people are going to be traveling for the Christmas holiday starting tomorrow and that traffic usually starts around 10 a.m.,” said Ally Barrera, a spokesperson for WSDOT.
The freezing temperatures also have shelters open. The “We All Belong” emergency cold weather shelter at the Edmonds Senior Center. The shelter serves South Snohomish County.
“Tonight we have 22 people,” said Chris Floyd, the shelter manager.
“It does make a difference when you actually have a warm place to stay,” said David Arsenault Jr., who was staying at the shelter Thursday.
With a long cold snap ahead and lows below freezing expected for a week, the volunteer-run shelter is making sure it’s ready, too.
“It’s a lot of preparation. we’ve got to make sure we’ve got our volunteers lined up. It means preparing food, lots of food, because the colder it gets, the more people tend to show up,” Floyd said.
The city of Seattle plans to open its cold weather shelter Friday.
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