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Wintry Mix Hits the Area

An icy mix swept through the area Sunday night into Monday morning. “It’s been really slippery. I fell once and she fell once so far,” said Ri...

An icy mix swept through the area Sunday night into Monday morning.

"It's been really slippery. I fell once and she fell once so far," said Richard Ambrose of Mount Pocono. "We got a puppy and we want to house break her so we are taking her out every four hours. This may be the wrong time to bring her out."

A Burger King parking lot in Mount Pocono was a crunchy coated mess. Axel Barongan arrived from Philadelphia where he says roads there  weren't much better.

"It's much like this, a little icy."

The winter weather has actually been great for business at places like Ace Hardware in the Daleville area. Managers tell us this time last year, they had six tractor trailer loads of rock salt and they were good for the season. This year already seven loads and they're expecting more this week.

"The storm didn't seem that bad but then after this morning's crowd, I was surprised how many people were stuck in the ice," said Chuck Cottle. "We've been pretty busy, customers coming in for rock salt shovels and roof melt, a lot of roof melt."

In the crowd was Carl Pollock who manages a nearby warehouse.

"We have to take care of all of our sidewalks and steps. It's been a battle every day," said Pollock. "I'm ready for it to be over."

This is the kind of weather where timing and elevation make a big difference. Some places saw more ice than snow Monday morning.

In the valley areas, this was more of an ice event than a snow event.

For most that meant one solution: rock salt.

There was a glaze of ice on everything -- cars, sidewalks -- in Taylor.   Some got there in the form of freezing rain. The rest is accumulated sleet.

One of George Stoll's first stops of the day was a hardware store for a bag of rock salt.

"Down the house to do the sidewalks and steps," Stoll said. "(It's) pretty slick."

Stoll was not alone. Bag after bag of rock salt headed out the door of the Ace Hardware Store along Main Street in Old Forge.

"I have an apartment building and a house right next to each other, so the whole parking lot is a sheet of ice like this," said Mike Adomiak.

Boroughs like Taylor are also heavy users of rock salt, especially in ice storms. The street foreman believes they'll use more than 75 tons before the storm is over.

It's nearly the middle of February and winter is more than half over so one of the questions: is there enough rock salt to last until spring?

"We're not too bad. The salt orders have been pretty good. We use a lot," said public works foreman Joe Iacovazzi.

He says they need it all to take care of more than 30 miles of streets in Taylor.

Back at the hardware store, one of the workers said salt sales go up when snow and ice appear in the forecast.

"Before a storm, everybody comes looking for the salt, shovels, especially when there's a storm called for. We usually go through two and a half, or three pallets of salt," John Soy explained.

Soy adds they're in contact with their suppliers, and there will be new bags of salt on hand to replace what flies out the door on Monday.

One of the workers told us that even this late in the season, they still people coming in looking for snow shovels and other winter gear.

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