Tips for Winter Prep from Seattle Department of Transportation
It is that time of year where the winter weather creeps in here to Seattle. Omari caught up with our friends at the Seattle Department of Transportation about what they are doing to prepare Seattle for bad weather and tips for you.
TRANSCRIPT EDITED FOR CLARITY
Omari Salisbury
All right, everybody catching up with Matt Howard of SDOT. How are you today, Matt?
Matt Howard
I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for having me.
Omari Salisbury
All right, fantastic. You know, it's that time of where the winter weather creeps in here to Seattle. When the snow and ice and things like that come in the roads get kind of crazy. What is SDOT doing to prepare Seattle for bad weather?
Matt Howard
So first off, we make sure to keep all of our bases covered. We've got a direct line to the National Weather Service, we've got live Doppler radar feeds, and we're tracking storms on our winter weather reports 24/7. In addition to that, on the ground, we got live stream cameras that are actually allowing us to see what's going on on the roadways in real-time, as well as some sensors that we put into bridges and major roadways that show us what the air temperature is and what the road temperature is. That way we know where more ice is likely to appear. Now, with all that in mind, we're then able to dispatch our crews out to the scene of the crime, who can actually go in to clear up the roads before that snow accumulates.
Omari Salisbury
Right, and what should people be doing? or clearly you said you're monitoring, you got sensors and bridges, you got cameras and things like that. Should people also contact SDOT if they're seeing like there's a large area of ice or black ice or something like that? What what what ways does SDOT interact with the public? Or do you guys just kind of do your own thing?
Matt Howard
We mostly do our own thing, it is a very intuitive process, we've been analyzing our snow routes for like months leading up to any sort of winter weather storm. So we make sure that we've got about 1200 miles worth of roadways accounted for. in that process, we're able to go through, we choose these routes very specifically, are unable to go in clear up as much snow and as much ice as possible. In terms of some of those places that are hard to reach. We're not able to meet those needs immediately. It can take us up to 12 hours to actually clear out a street completely. But we are taking care of business and we're making sure that the major roadways that you'll need to get from point A to point B if need be, are clear.
Omari Salisbury
All right, this weekend right here in Seattle is expecting some bad weather, so to speak. What's some advice that SDOT giving people in Seattle as far as preparing for the weather? What are some of the things we could be doing?
Matt Howard
So the best thing you can do is talk beforehand. I'm not from Seattle, I'm originally from Houston, Texas. So like I've been up here for about like four years now. when that snow came in early 2018, it caught me off guard, like I was literally like, I don't know what to do. I went up the hill to one of the QFC's on Capitol Hill, and was like looking around the shelves are completely barren. So that kind of leads me to like the major thing you got to do, which is stock up on those items, not just the day before, but make sure to have some of these things ahead of time. one of the best things you can do is definitely have a list you need like a snow shovel, you'll need first aid kits which you can get from your local pharmacies or even your local grocery stores, warm blankets, warm clothes, make sure you have flashlights hanging around, not just candles but flashlights. you also want to get some rock soul or some other environmentally friendly de-icer for the like sidewalks. That way, ice doesn't form where you're trying to walk. The other thing you want to do is make sure to get in touch with your neighbors because they're going to be your lifeline effectively. If y'all come up with a plan to go out and shovel some like snow off the sidewalk every 12 hours, you can stop that big freeze that happens at the underneath levels. So that when people are going outside, they're not just slipping and sliding all over the place.
Omari Salisbury
All right, and sounds like S-D-O-T is armed and ready, so to speak, and to stay active on the streets. When it comes to clearing bad weather. I did have one question for you. Is this like a 24-hour process for you guys? are people like on the clock around the clock?
Matt Howard
People are on the clock around the clock. It's like I said before, it can take up to 12 hours to clear any particular route for any reasons. So we collaborate with other city departments to ensure that if there's a tree down or a traffic signal light is off. We're out there with our crews, fixing it in real-time so that that way you don't get stuck. So yeah, we're out there, aka, we have our crews just continuously circulating. We keep them fresh so that that way the next crew members can take on that route, and so on and so forth until the weather's past.
Omari Salisbury
All right. The last thing here is a lot of people that watch Converge are also big on Twitter, and now SDOT also has a Twitter and I see that for the most part. You guys have been pretty good, keeping things updated when the lights out or there's a stoppage in traffic and things like that. Will someone be manning the Twitter during these bad weather occurrences?
Matt Howard
Oh, yeah, that's a bet you can definitely, like, rely on us for up to date news in real-time. Twitter is just a great way to kind of reach out to folks and lets them know in real-time what's happening. We also have a winter weather web page that you can go to and look at what the weather routes are. Sometimes the winter weather webpage can actually give you that information before you shoot that stuff on Twitter, but definitely, we're available.
Omari Salisbury
All right, Matt Howard, Seattle Department of Transportation D-O-T. Matt, I definitely appreciate you taking the time to join us and really kind of letting the community know in advance like hey, let's be prepared for this bad weather. Appreciate you.
Matt Howard
No problem. Thanks for having me.
