Milestone in Jonas response: all state roads to be plowed & treated by Wednesday night

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — All of the state maintained roads in West Virginia were scheduled to be plowed and treated by the end of the day Wednesday, a milestone in the aftermath of Winter Storm Jonas for the state Division of Highways.

“I’m just really proud of the outstanding job the men and women of the Division of Highways have done over the past few days,” said Paul Mattox, secretary of the state Department of Transportation, of the work on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”

Substantial road clearing progess was made, he said, through Berkeley County and Jefferson County especially from Tuesday to Wednesday — areas that saw 30 inches of snow or more. Accumulations in parts of Jefferson County topped 40 inches.

“The roads are open and that’s the key,” said Eddie Gochenour, director of the Berkeley County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

“We had all shades of red over us. We were the bullseye of this storm and it was a challenge.”

As of Wednesday morning, the DOH’s District Five report read as follows:

Berkeley County
Primary – 100%
Secondary – 80%
Third – 80%

Grant County
Primary – 100%
Secondary – 100%
Third – 100%

Hampshire County
Primary – 100%
Secondary – 100%
Third – 100%

Hardy County
Primary – 100%
Secondary – 100%
Third – 100%

Jefferson County
Primary – 100%
Secondary – 100%
Third – 60%

Mineral County
Primary – 100%
Secondary – 100%
Third – 100%

Morgan County
Primary – 100%
Secondary – 100%
Third – 100%

Additional DOH equipment, including snow blowers, graders, graders with plows and small dozers, along with equipment operators were sent into both Berkeley County and Jefferson County earlier this week.

At one time, five extra tandem dump trucks with plows, ten more equipment operators and another grader and plow were focused solely on Interstate 81 in Berkeley County.

“We spent a lot of resources on Interstate 81 and it took a lot of our manpower and equipment to keep that highway, get it open to traffic again,” Mattox said.

“Once we were able to do that and with the resources from the Elkins area being sent over and allocated to the Eastern Panhandle, we were able to get back ahead of things and made up a lot of ground (on Tuesday).”

On Wednesday, nearly 39 contractors continued working in the Eastern Panhandle counties to push back all of the piled up snow.

West Virginia’s road crews may not get much rest in some areas.

Additional snow is possible Thursday night and into Friday in West Virginia’s mountains especially, according to the National Weather Service.





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