Michigan Department of Transportation preparing for incoming snowfall

TOLEDO, Ohio — The WTOL 11 Weather team is expecting around 4-6 inches of snow in Lenawee County within the next 24 hours and transportation officials in Michigan are busy preparing.

At the Michigan Department of Transportation in Adrian, there are mountains of salt ready to be used.

“They’re ready to go. Once we see the snow coming, once we know that there’s an incident happening, it’s pretty instant,” MDOT spokesperson, Aaron Jenkins said. “We have great coverage.”

Jenkins said the team is hard at work with a handful of trucks being loaded with salt, snow tractors being washed down and a full crew on deck. 

“Whenever we have a weather incident, we know it’s coming. We’ll go ahead and we’ll put our teams on a 24-hour shift, so they’ll work in two different shifts,” Jenkins said. “They’re preparing, they’re doing their pre-checks or post-checks.”

Jenkins said they’ll be out salting the roads 24/7 so people can make it safely to their destinations if they do need to drive in bad conditions.

Jenkins said people should practice safe driving on the road, including Michigan’s new law requiring drivers to be at least 200 feet behind any snow plows that are actively working.

“That’s kind of a wacky random number, but it’s about 12 car lengths,” Jenkins said. “We’d say, ‘Give us room to groom so that we can see you.'”

Tecumseh Public Schools told WTOL 11 that the school does not have plans to close Wednesday but is still observing Thursday with the chance of a potential closure. A decision the district tells us will likely be made Wednesday evening.

Adrian Public Schools said no decision has been made yet for Wednesday or Thursday, however, they’ll continue to observe the next 24 hours.