Road officials warn of unsafe conditions after snowfall

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind.— County road workers had a lot in store for the major lake effect snow showers that made their way through St. Joseph County on Monday, but Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) Public Relation’s Officer Cassandra Bajeck said they’re doing everything they can to keep folks safe out on the roads!

In order to do that, 28 trucks were sent out to the more heavily traffic roads, such as US-20 from Michigan City all the way to South Bend, US-31, the bypass, and interstates. The trucks pretreated these roads with brine, which is a water and salt mix to reduce slickness, and continued salting roads down along with plowing.

Bajeck said it’s hard to pinpoint what areas to avoid during a spread-out snowfall like this, but that because of the truck workers out, that folks should’ve felt OK to drive.

“It’s kind of hard to say specifically where to avoid or where to go instead but we definitely focus on those more heavily traffic roads as far as making sure they’re pretreated, they’re constantly being monitored and maintained throughout the snowstorm. It is okay to be out on some of those larger roads and more heavily trafficked roads because that’s where we are going to be focusing most of our attention,” INDOT Public Relations Officer Cassandra Bajeck said.

While it’s been quite a year for weather, it’s also been quite the year for businesses all around Michiana because of the pandemic. However, Bajeck actually said it hasn’t affected workers there and that things have been pretty normal.

Though, aside from conducting business as usual, some stronger safety guidelines have been put in place for these workers.

“Limiting contact between drivers a little bit more. They’re going to be doing a lot of the pre-safety briefings that they would normally do in person, over the radio instead…and then just being safe, you know using hand sanitizer, wiping down their trucks and things like that,” Bajeck said.

Keeping employees safe, and keeping drivers’ safe roads is always the main priority! However, it’s not just up to the truck workers though to keep you safe, Bajeck said that the responsibility also falls into each individuals’ hands, too.

Her advice is to keeping an eye out on road conditions no matter where you are and to do your part to be a cautious, smart driver.

“We defiantly recommend that you have your headlights on, especially on a day like today where it’s windy and it’s lake effect. It’s going to reduce visibility a lot. We definitely recommend driving slower., even slower than what the posted speed limits might be in an area because you’re going to need to be able to stop faster and react to whatever’s going on in the roadway. We also recommend now following too closely behind other vehicles, especially snow plows.”

Constant updates on road conditions throughout Michiana can be found on the INDOT cars program online.

You can also get updates on our ABC57 weather app at any time.