Benton County: All county roads were open Monday, despite the sometimes slick conditions, according to Cindy Jones, road coordinator. The county gave its road crews a break Saturday night before going back to working full-time on the roads. Officials replenished supplies of sand and salt on Saturday and were buying more Monday.
Bentonville: Roads were mostly covered with ice Monday, though there were clear patches, said Tony Davis, city street manager. “The majority of the main intersections are starting to clear.”
The city has two road graders — one city-owned and one that’s rented — that are working a combined 24 hours per day. “The plows really are not very effective when it comes to ice on the roads,” Davis said. “The graders can shave the ice, so that’s what we’re doing.” Crews are sanding and salting intersections and slopes in certain areas of town.
Washington County: “We can’t peel that layer of ice out — our ice plows, they just skim right over it,” said Shawn Shrum, assistant road superintendent for Washington County. “
There’s little to be done except wait for sunlight and warmer temperatures to weaken the ice.
“A lot of people have criticized us for taking the snow off, but in no time traffic packs that down, too,” he said Monday. “I think after today they’re going to look better, but there’s still going to be a lot of slick spots.”
The county uses limestone gravel to give traction, but doesn’t use salt to melt the ice and doesn’t pre-treat roads.
Fayetteville: Main Fayetteville thoroughfares, such as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and College Avenue, were mostly clear Monday afternoon, constant traffic and repeated treatment by crews. Other side streets were still frozen.
Terry Gulley, Transportation Services director, said workers were focusing on neighborhood streets, particularly in hilly neighborhoods.
Crews have had a difficult time scraping ice off streets. The city’s snow plows do little more than glide over ice when streets are frozen. Gulley said the city’s one road grader is about the only piece of equipment that can effectively remove the ice.
He said crews have spread more than 600 tons of salt and sand on streets — along with 30,000 gallons of liquid salt brine — to give drivers more traction and to try to break up some of the ice.
Rogers: More traffic on city streets Monday helped melt some of snow and ice, city officials said. Walnut Street, New Hope Road and Pleasant Grove Road still have a layer of ice in many places. Downtown streets are in better shape.
Frankie Guyll, street superintendent, said street crews are doing their best to clear the snow and ice from major arteries, but it is difficult to scrape the ice off without damaging the street or the equipment.
Guyll said he expect streets to be slick early this morning. Warmer temperatures today should make it easier to clear more streets.
Springdale: Principal arterial streets — such as Thompson Street, Old Missouri Road, and Sunset and Robinson avenues — experienced extensive thawing Monday, said Sam Goade, public works director.
“The thaw allowed us to get a bite into the snow pack and at least take a layer off,” Goade said. “When snow is packed as hard as it was, our plows just skim over the ice.”
Residential streets have not thawed as fast, Goade said.
“We’ve had to go over hillsides and intersections six or seven times,” Goade said. “The chat we put down sinks into the pack and refreezes.”
Source: Staff Report