MDOT Crews Remained On The Road Day And Night During Blizzard

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plowlight3-2

The Michigan Department of Transportation is thanking its plow drivers for being on the job day and night during this past week’s blizzard. MDOT spokesperson Nick Schirripa tells us the southwest region has 75 plows and 65 plow routes. A big priority is I-94, which was filled with crashes Friday. MDOT considered closing the highway completely in Berrien and Van Buren counties.

“It’s a very serious decision to make, obviously,” Schirripa said. “When you’re closing a stretch of the interstate that carries 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 vehicles per day, we wanted to be sure we were making the right call. But there were so many crashes on Friday that we and the state police were telling people just to stay off I-94 through Berrien and Van Buren County if they could avoid it.”

Schirripa says in frigid temperatures like those brought by the storm, salt was only used on the road in a few places.

“Think of a 40 mile loop. If I’m putting salt on mile one and then plowing in front of it, by the time I go the 40 miles to come back to mile one, it may have refrozen.”

Therefore, they only used salt where another plow could come through a few minutes later to clear what was melted. Schirripa says the job of plowing the highway was made more difficult due to the high number of crashes Friday that resulted in plows losing access to certain stretches of the road. Schirripa says regardless of the agency, all first responders and plow drivers need to be thanked for their tireless work throughout the storm.