Crews Tackle Snow in Counties

County crews in Mid-Missouri urging drivers to stay off rural roads until crews make them passable. On Tuesday trucks worked to get the final snow off roads in Boone County and Cooper County initiated a state of emergency.Both counties are gathering up all resources and getting ready to battle the winter weather once again. The state of emergency in Cooper County is a message to the public that those roads could be blocked for a while. “They have to have a place to put the snow and before they could push it all to the side. Now they have to push snow on top of snow its going to be very difficult,” said Tom White with Emergency Management from Cooper County. Officials there are calling the snow a crisis for rural roads, and they are bringing in back up crews and initiating their emergency plan.”We are hoping the normal person realizes this is a step above what we normally do, and they head that caution and stay off the roads stay home,” said White.In Boone County those keeping the back roads clear also warn of the added snow. “If you’re in a car and there’s a foot of snow out there you might want to consider waiting until the roads clear before you try to get out,” said Bryan Boyce from Boone County Public Works.Getting those roads clear is a major task when it comes to the lengthy routes of entire counties. “We have about 800 miles of road throughout the whole county, there’s about 250 paved,” said Boyce.”There’s going to be a lot of drifting of snow and its going to close a lot of roads out there for an unknown period of time,” said White.County crews plow gravel roads, back roads, and neighborhoods, but in this storm extra snow also in the mix. “Our concern is that we have a lot of snow on the edges of the roads right now in cul-de-sacs so where we are going to put this snow?” said Boyce.With no where for the new snow to go, people stranded out on county roads may be left longer with no help. However, crews are doing all they can to make sure that doesn’t happen. Boone County has around 30 vehicles working 24/7, and Cooper County has over a dozen trucks and crews set to hit the roads.Cooper County’s Emergency plan includes transporting essential personnel to hospitals, and driving 911 dispatch too and from work.