Crews out treating slick roads across Mid-Missouri

The winter weather is causing hazardous driving conditions throughout Mid-Missouri.

MoDot crews spread 250 thousand tons of salt throughout Boone County from Sunday night into Monday morning with 10 trucks to treat freezing roads.

MoDot officials said they have treated all first and second priority roads at least once as of 6:30 Monday morning. They said they will continue until all roads are dry.

Columbia Public Works had a full crew out pre-treating the roads starting at midnight.

Jefferson City Public Works said they had 23 trucks come in at 4:00 Monday morning to treat the slick roads.

And Cole County Public Works had 26 trucks spreading salt.

Boone County Public Works had 22 trucks and eight road-graters out at well. Officials said all state lettered roads remain slick.

MoDot Maintenance Crew Leader Brad Pefferman said the prevention is key to ensuring safe roads during ice.

” It’s a lot easier to take care of that before — you know it’s like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of a cure with ice,” Pefferman said. “Any situation we’re dealing with ice, it’s going to be slippier and more difficult to travel on.”

Sunday night was only the second time MoDot crews have had to plow or pre-treat the roads this winter, and crew members said that’s a good thing.

“We can actually do regular road maintenance, you know, when it snows a lot, it seems like we’re either fixing the trucks, or cleaning up after the last one, that’s all we do. Here we can do regular maintenance items,” Pefferman said. “And anything we don’t use, we don’t have to refill and that leaves us more money for asphalt patches in the summer and what have you. It’s good for the budget.”