HALL COUNTY, Ga. — The state will begin pretreating metro Atlanta roads tonight in preparation for snow this weekend. The Georgia Department of Transportation plans to spread brine beginning at 10 p.m., with crews in northeast Georgia starting work at 7 a.m. Friday.
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This is the third weekend in a row of wintry weather in Georgia, but a GDOT spokesperson said the repeat storms aren’t straining the agency’s resources.
“It’s not a stress,” said Nathan Johnston, a spokesperson for GDOT’s District One, which covers northeast Georgia. “We’re ready for it. We’re ready for it always. If another winter storm comes up next weekend, we’ll have plenty of brine on hand.”
The state has nearly two million gallons of brine on tap and has the capacity to make an additional 50,000 gallons of brine an hour, GDOT said. For plowing, the state has about 570 snow-removal trucks, and most of those are also equipped to spread salt, sand and gravel.
“Give our trucks the space to work throughout, whether it’s pretreating, whether it’s plowing the snow later on in the weekend,” Johnston said.
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GDOT plans to only brine the outside lanes and ramps along the interstates. For multilane freeways, the two outside lanes will get pretreated.
“This strategy allows crews to treat the greatest number of roadways and prepare routes for plowing once snowfall begins,” the agency said in a news release.
Drivers will pretreat Interstate 75 from the Tennessee line to Macon; Interstate 85 from metro Atlanta to South Carolina; Interstate 20 through and east of Atlanta to South Carolina; and Interstate 16 and Interstate 95.
“Due to the nature of this storm – including large, fluffy snowflakes combined with extremely low temperatures – accumulation is expected to continue even after routes have been treated and plowed,” GDOT said in a release.
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In Hall County, which just shook off the last of the ice from last weekend’s winter storm, people are gearing up for another wintry burst.
“I would say I’m tired of it,” said Crystal Munday, who was gassing up her car in Gainesville.
The area is forecast to get a couple of inches of snow, not the freezing rain and sleet of last weekend.
“To be honest, I like the snow, so I don’t want to lie about that. I just don’t like the ice. So if it’s going to snow, I’d rather have the snow than the ice,” Munday said.
The forecast is no bother for T.K. Johnson.
“Nah, it’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s not going to faze me one way or the other. Got things to do, I’m going to do it anyway,” Johnson said.
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