ATLANTA — The Georgia Department of Transportation is getting high marks for the way it prepped the state’s major highways and interstates for the winter storm.
GDOT is responsible for interstate and major state routes like Highway 20 in Forsyth County, not small roads or city streets.
GDOT gets a lot of criticism when things go bad, but this time around, it seems their response to the ice storm kept major roads and interstates open.
They say that’s all because of Snowmaggedon in 2014.
“Perfect planning for the perfect storm,” is what GDOT’s Natalie Dale said about the agency’s storm response.
Dale said GDOT learned a lot after the traffic catastrophe that was Snomaggedon 2014, when tens of thousands of cars and trucks were stuck on solid ice for days.
“We have a really strategic vision for how to work these storms now, and a lot of that came out of Gov. Deal’s Winter Weather Taskforce that happened after Snowmaggedon.
TRENDING STORIES:
- ‘The Blind Side’ actor on life support at Atlanta hospital
- Power outages for 90% of north Georgia county in ice storm
- Dangerously cold conditions – protect people, pets, pipes
That means finding the right time to pretreat roads with brine, salt aggregate, and calcium chloride.
What could have been another icy traffic nightmare really wasn’t. That’s what some Forsyth County drivers told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot.
“What kind of job do you think GDOT did keeping the roads open this time?” Elliot asked driver Atticus Legendre.
“They did good. I’m impressed,, actually,” Legendre said.
“In my area, most of the major roads or other two-way roads are all better. I think they put the good work of putting salt or something,” driver Balaji Harihasundaram said.
Dale insists there were two major reasons this one went well: The work of their crews and the fact that people listened and stayed off the roads, giving them time to treat them.
“We’re really proud of what we did during this storm. Now every storm is different. So, we’ll have to re-gear, refill for the next scenario, and plan for that one. But we feel like the plan that we put into action for this one was very successful,” Dale said.
But GDOT is sure to get more criticism soon, as people have to take their cars to car washes to wash off that salt and brine that kept their roads safe.
©2026 Cox Media Group
