Travel treacherous across E. Arkansas; ice, snow forecast

Highway Department focusing efforts on major highways, secondary roads

Travel remains treacherous across the area, and according to the forecast, may not improve any time soon.

The National Weather Service in Memphis is forecasting another round of winter weather to arrive overnight, further deteriorating travel conditions.

Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department crews are continuing to work around the clock in an effort to clear highways as much as possible before moving to secondary roadways.

“As is our practice, we will initially focus on interstates and major routes. When we have these in good condition, we move on to our lower volume routes,” said Cannon Callicott, ArDOT District 1 Engineer.

The Forrest City Public Works Department is plowing some city streets. St. Francis County road officials said crews are waiting for the situation to improve before starting work on any county roadways.

Callicott said highway department crews have been making some progress ahead of the next storm system.

“Our crews made great progress yesterday and last night,” Callicott said this morning. “Most of our major routes are in good shape, and we are pushing hard today to get to as many of our secondary roads as possible before snow returns.”

Callicott said crews pretreated many highways last week, which is paying off. “We are still benefitting from the chlorides we applied last week, and all that have been applied since then will only assist us with this coming system,” he said.

Prior to the first storm’s arrival, Callicott said the agency stocked up on salt, sand and brine, but some restocking has been necessary.

“We have adequate supplies for this next round. We were able to partially resupply between these last two events, so we are near capacity in most locations,” said Callicott.

The agency has had to bring in additional equipment from Little Rock after some of the local equipment was damaged in accidents on Interstate 40.

“We’ve had a couple of spreaders hit on I-40 that we’ve had to take out of service,” said Callicott. “Additional snowplows and spreaders were brought in from Little Rock to assist in this last event and will likely be used again.”

Callicott said he is hopeful the agency can make more strides today in clearing roadways.

“With the sunshine and clear weather, we expect to make meaningful gains today. We will have crews running through the night and will remain on a 24hour operations schedule until this is over,” said Callicott. “According to the forecast, we

should be back in good shape by the weekend.”

Arkansas State Police Troop D Captain David Moore said troopers have remained busy throughout the eight-county troop. So far, no fatalities have been reported, although troopers have worked several accidents involving personal injuries and property damage.

Moore said in St. Francis County, since the storm began, three people have reportedly been injured in accidents, and troopers have worked 17 property damage accidents.

In Crittenden County, troopers have worked five personal injury and 10 property damage accidents.

“Interstate 40 has one lane clear, both eastbound and westbound,” said Moore. “The secondary highways are snow packed, but passable.”

According to Moore, the National Guard is in the area to assist troopers and motorists and plans to remain here throughout the week.