How snow crews are preparing for snowy weekend in South Bend

“We’ve been preparing for this for a couple of days now,” said Derick Roberts, Director of Streets and Sewers for the City of South Bend.

At least of couple of days worth of preparation is what it takes according to the South Bend Streets Department to get ready for our first snowfall of the season.

“Since Monday night we’ve been putting a salt brine mix down on the streets. We’ve put about 15 thousand gallons down since Monday night in order to just pre-wet the roads and keep the snow and ice from sticking,” said Roberts.

Still, Roberts says the timing of the snow is one major factor in the all of the accidents you may have seen on your way to work Thursday morning.

“When it really started coming down was 5:00 a.m. which is really when people start their commute for the day and so that doesn’t help when we’re out trying to plow. The more the accidents, the slower the traffic goes,” said Roberts.

But when the snow stops, don’t expect it to stop for very long. Around 6 inches of snow is in the forecast for this weekend. Despite that Roberts says we’re in good shape.

“We have more salt than we know what to do with right now so we’re probably in the best shape we’ve ever been in with salt right now,” said Roberts.

And his crews are getting ready, overtime included.

“We’re fully prepared to work 12 plus hours. We also have a shift tonight so they’ll be here to plow through the night if that’s what’s necessary. We’ll have crews ready on Saturday, for Saturday and Saturday night so we’ll be able to go out and take care of that whenever it does start coming down,” said Roberts.

The County Engineer, Jessica Clark, says crews will pre-treat the streets again Friday and again on Saturday morning with a full crew of 50 trucks across the county.