CHARLESTON, W.Va. — White roads across West Virginia filled up a wall of screens on Friday morning in the Division of Highways’ Transportation Management Center at the West Virginia Capitol Complex, the site that oversees the state’s roads in good weather and bad.
“This is the hub for everything,” Brent Walker, communications director for the West Virginia Department of Transportation, told MetroNews as Winter Storm Jonas moved north through the Mountain State and put down heavy snow on its busiest roads.
Those in the management center coordinate with DOH districts and county 911 centers throughout West Virginia on accidents, other incidents and road conditions.
“But we’re only as good as the information they’re given,” Walker explained. “That’s why we work so closely and rely so heavily on county 911 agencies.”
Phones were ringing often on Friday morning as road conditions worsened from southern West Virginia, where Jonas first started putting down heavy snow around dawn, up through northern West Virginia.
Governor Earl Ray Tomblin issued a State of Emergency, changing a State of Preparedness that he announced earlier this week ahead of the arrival of Winter Storm Jonas.
Steady snow was forecasted to continue through Sunday in some areas.
The DOH highway cameras showed vehicles getting stuck, rollover accidents and, in some rare cases, pavement in certain areas at different times.
“With this amount of snowfall, it’s just going to time to plow it and treat the roads,” said Paul Mattox, state transportation secretary, as crews worked to clear more than 36,000 miles of highway.
“We’re continuing to do battle,” Walker later said during a state briefing on Jonas. “Our crews, while out there, certainly will have challenges keeping up with the roads.”
In the kind of heavy snow that fell Friday, Walker said road crews focus their efforts on primary routes and, on those roads, the goal is always to keep one lane passable at all times, if possible, even as snow falls.
“We don’t want to raise folks’ expectations in terms of thinking that travel won’t be difficult, because it will be,” Walker said.
To see the highway cameras that feed into the DOH’s Transportation Management Center, click here.