LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. — It is not going to be the biggest storm we have ever seen, but it is been nearly two years since the Scranton area saw the amount of snow we are expecting this weekend, which is likely why it is all a lot of us are talking about.
But because of the timing, the storm moving in on a weekend night, PennDOT officials say that will be a big help in getting the roads cleared and ready.
PennDOT truck operators covering the 6 counties in Northeastern PA's District 4 will treat more than 8 thousand snow lane miles this weekend.. that includes pre-treating the roads before the storm, plowing the snow during the storm, and cleaning up once the storm is over.
Here in District 4, there are 400 operators driving 200 trucks on a 12-hour shift. PennDOT officials say the storm coming on a weekend and the heaviest snow falling at night is already beneficial because that means fewer people on the roads. Operators have been getting ready all week but really it has been longer than that.
"All of our trucks ready to go, all of our materials prepared, and our operators trained. All of that has been happening over the last several weeks. We do snow academy for all of our operators at the tail end of the summer so that they're ready for every event and all of them are very seasoned operators," said Jonathan Eboli, Assistant District Executive for Maintenance, PennDOT District 4.
The 511 website also provides real-time information during a storm like this weekend's. It's all controlled through the traffic management center in Dunmore which turns into the Incident Command Center during a winter storm. You will be able to see the condition of every major roadway, you can see when the road was last treated, and you can see exactly where all the plow trucks are.
PennDOT officials say they have more than 30 cameras all over the 6 counties the district covers.
"We keep the cameras on our interstates and our supervisor in the TMC monitor road conditions and if there is an incident we will document that in our system and that will feed 511PA.com so motorists can check that out. If we need to call for assistance during any incidents we're able to do that because we can see what's going on in live time," said Lonell Shalkowski, Maintenance Services Engineer, PennDOT District 4.