This Week at N.C. Transportation: Snow and Ice Response

RALEIGH, NC (January 13, 2017)…The following are highlights from this week at the N.C. Department of Transportation. The stories below are also featured in N.C. Transportation Now, the department’s weekly newscast.

NCDOT Responds to Snow and Ice

Nearly all 100 North Carolina counties received snow and ice earlier this week, and NCDOT crews were hard at work clearing the state’s roads to get traffic safely moving again. More than 2,500 state transportation employees and contractors used roughly 1,600 vehicles to treat and plow roadways.

With nearly 80,000 miles of state-maintained roads to clear, the department focuses on interstates and heavily travelled primary routes first, followed by lower volume primary and secondary roads. Crews applied about 60,000 tons of salt and more than 22,000 tons of a salt and sand mixture, which helps melt ice and provide traction. Excessively cold temperatures that dropped into the teens and single digits overnight in many areas made road clearing efforts more challenging. Salt is not effective below about 18 degrees, so any snow and ice that had melted during the day froze again overnight.

Gov. Cooper Names Jim Trogdon to Lead NCDOT

Gov. Roy Cooper has nominated Jim Trogdon, an engineer with decades of leadership in state government and the military, to serve as secretary of the N.C. Department of Transportation. Trogdon served as NCDOT’s chief operating officer, among other positions at the department, before his retirement in 2013, and has also served as director of Strategic Transportation Planning for the North Carolina General Assembly. He leaves his current work at SAS Institute as national transportation director to lead NCDOT.  Trogdon’s appointment must be confirmed by the state senate.  The governor named NCDOT’s chief engineer, Mike Holder, as acting secretary of the department in the interim.

For more information about N.C. Transportation Now, contact the NCDOT Communications Office at (919) 707-2660. Additional news stories from throughout the week can be found on NCDOT.gov.