ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – The City of Roanoke is preparing for future winter weather.

“These events can come out of nowhere. We must be prepared to face whatever conditions may throw at us. So whether it’s icing, whether it’s downed trees, or, you know, a hindrance to our emergency response, our first goal is usually to make sure that our fire, our PD, our other emergency services public safety can get where they are needed,” said Michael Venable, Public Works director of field operations.

Venable said annual snow training is underway for the 175 crew members involved in the snow removal program.

“We review policies, procedures and general operations. We discuss specific equipment and infrastructures, lessons learned, and one-off cases. We discuss each individual’s role, and then we have the opportunity to do that,” Venable said.

He said the crews were actively gaining practical experience at the Berglund Center.

“We are putting out equipment. We lay down sand to act as snow, use our plows and teach different snow removal maneuvers and operations. We set up a course with cones to be able to navigate difficult terrain and hard-to-reach places, just to prepare our staff for some of the situations they might encounter,” he added.

Venable said they already have 1,200 tons of salt in their barn, ready to lay down in case of inclement weather, adding that they will always pre-treat the roadway a few hours before a snow event.

“We fill our trucks with brine, our trucks with salt brine, which is a mixture of salt and water. And we go in there and we start applying to what we consider to be our hot spots or our places that tend to freeze and freeze over the fastest, which are bridges, shaded areas, low-lying conditions.

He explained that in the event of an event, teams will group into groups of five to focus on a specific area of ​​the city and reapply salt regularly as weather permits.

“If we can remove the snow and get the asphalt back to bare ground, we can reapply another treatment several hours later. Each event is therefore unique. Each snowfall has a different consistency and a different frequency.

Venable asks drivers to be extra cautious when they see field crews working.

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