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Drop In Temperatures Could Refreeze Already Slick Roads

BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- Road conditions may get worse as temperatures drop below freezing.

The biggest concern: the snow that melted during the day is now turning into a slick sheet of ice. Road crews are hard at work trying to prevent that from happening. Salt trucks loaded up once again for another round of work.

Weijia Jiang tells us what it's like out there right now.

At the Falls Road salt dome, crews are loading up for a long night ahead, ready to battle nasty roads across the city.

"It's like the back roads like this that are really bad, really icy. And they haven't been paved," said one person.

The state's first winter storm already triggered one round of icy problems, and they could get worse.

"We will keep an eye on it through the rest of the weekend," Adrienne Barnes of the Baltimore Department of Transportation said. "We're going to maintain a skeleton crew."

The biggest concern right now is that everything left over, especially on side streets, will refreeze as temperatures drop.

"In the overnight hours when the temperatures go below 20, that's when you'll start to see crews go out and do the scatter patrols, hit the icy spots that may start to refreeze," Charlie Gischlar of the State Highway Administration said.

The State Highway operations center is in full force as crews monitor roadways, which could turn into treacherous sheets of ice.

Several accidents were reported throughout Saturday.

"People spinning out, accidents, crazy accidents, bad traffic," Heath Kramer of White Marsh said.

"Spun out, went around the corner-- too tight went in," Sonny Botterill of Baltimore said.

Transportation officials warn low speeds are crucial until a meltdown happens and say even if a street looks clear, it's probably not.

"This is middle of winter, middle of January," Gischlar said. "Any moisture on the ground could freeze."

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