KYTC District 12 – Posts | Facebook
Officials with the District 12 office of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet took to Facebook with a message for drivers: Stay home.
The post, which was updated just before midnight, states parts of Johnson, Martin, Floyd, Knott and Pike counties were hard hit with icy roads and even salt trucks were sliding off the main roads.
The post reads as followed:
WARNING: Stay off ALL roads in District 12 the rest of tonight and tomorrow morning. We have reports of roads blocked by multiple vehicles that have lost control and are all over the place. Calls are coming in so fast that it is difficult to keep up with what is happening.
Counties hit the hardest right now (11:30 p.m. Sunday) are Johnson, Martin, Floyd, Knott, and Pike. It is only a matter of time until Lawrence and Letcher have the same issues.
This is not an exaggeration. Officials at District 12 have had to do something we never contemplated: we have told superintendents to pull back from “B” and “C” routes and only work “A” routes, and only do that if they can do so safely.
The rain is freezing before it hits pavement. By the time we work a lane and turn arund, it is a sheet of ice again.
Our trucks can’t get thereOur trucks, which have chains and are loaded with salt — which means they are extremely heavy — are having trouble staying on the road.
We have plow trucks running into guardrail and in ditches. We have trucks coming upon half a dozen or more vehicles all over the road, blocking both lanes so that we cannot get through. There are trees down on roads that we cannot get to.
If our trucks can’t get there, the utility company trucks can’t either, so they cannot move the power lines. Even if we could get there, we cannot clear trees off the roadway until the utility lines are moved.
There are all sorts of dangerous situations right now, and with temperatures falling throughout the night, it is only going to get worse, not better, no matter how much salt and liquid calcium chloride we put out.
When it is so bad that we have to pull back our trucks, no one else shold be on the roads. We are trying to keep “A” routes open, the main roads that lead to hospitals. Even that is a challenge in places where the “A” roads have hills.
In Knott County, Superintendent Bobby Smith stopped to help a motorist. He culd not stand up when he got out of his truck. The road was a sheet of ice.
Mary Westall-Holbrook, Chief District Engineer, said that D12 employees are experts at driving in all kinds of dangerous conditions. “But I am not going to put the lives of our men at risk when conditions are so dire that they cannot keep their trucks on pavement. When our trucks have to pull back, which has never happened since I’ve been chief, then no one else should even think about trying to get out.”
Internet connections and cell signals are being affected. Power outages are expected. We do not plan to post anything else until early tomorrow morning. This may be the only warning you get from District 12 until tomorrow, so please share it with family, friends, and co-workers.