After a winter storm rolled through Pennsylvania early this week, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) District 11 Traffic Command Center is keeping a close eye on roads to issue warnings to the public and help manage maintenance.
In the center, dozens of monitors are connected to 300 cameras that management calls its "eyes in the sky” because they keep watch over than 2,500 miles of roads during the winter blast that pushed through southwestern Pennsylvania.
"Especially for a wide-spread event like this morning, we pre-plan,” Lori Musto, District 11 assistant executive of maintenance, in a statement to Pittsburg’s Action News 4. “We have our designated snow routes and then we pre-plan to make sure your routes are covered. Once the storm starts, the best bet is to stick to our plan, keep our trucks on their routes. If you start chasing snowflakes, you end up getting nothing accomplished."
PennDOT said 130 salt trucks were deployed through Allegheny, Beaver, and Lawrence counties to treat the roads as the weather system moved through the area.
When salt trucks are treating roads, the driving public is advised to keep a safe distance.
"I happened to be behind one of our salt trucks, and there was a vehicle right up behind them,” said Musto to action News 4. "It takes salt a minute to spread on the ground and then activate, so being right behind the spreader, all you're doing is basically pumping your car with salt. It's not gaining you anything than if you were back, giving our folks time to work."
PennDOT said its Traffic Command Center is manned 24 hours a day throughout the year, including holidays.
Source: Action News 4, MSN.com
