DOT snowplow camera on Highway 65.

State roadways are starting to improve as Department of Transportation crews are out again cleaning up from the snowstorm.

DOT Winter Operations Administrator, Craig Bargfrede, says they did some prep even before the storm hit. He says they were able to do a lot of pretreating of the roadways so that once the snow hit, the treatment would activate and start to do its job. Bargfrede says the pre-treatment helps keep the snow from sticking to the pavement — but in Tuesday’s storm, the biggest issue was the amount of snow.

He says they are now working to scrape away what they didn’t get. “Today we are in the post-storm clean-up. So, going out and hitting those trouble spot areas, going out and doing the clean up that comes after the storm — making sure everything is back to near normal as quickly as possible, ” Bargfrede says. He says there were a lot of drivers who went into the ditch during the storm.
He says a number of counties put tow bans in place Tuesday and there will be a lot of activity out there today) getting the vehicles out and preparing for the next storm Friday.

Snowfall ranged from four to 12 inches and Bargfrede says the day after involves making room along the roadways.  “The biggest thing is getting out there and getting those last trouble spot areas kind of clean up. And winging back in some of those areas where we had some pretty significant drifting — just to give us some storage capacity for the next round,” he explains.

Bargfrede says one ally in the clean up is the sun heating up the pavement and melting snow. “The sun does have some pretty good power and is quite a help to us today,” Bargfreed says. A majority of the roadways were listed as partially covered with snow early this (Wednesday) morning — with a few completely covered. That situation has improved. For more information on the road conditions go to the Iowa DOT’s 511 travel information page.