At a staging center in Asheville, transportation workers have spent the week mixing brine and preparing large piles of salt and sand with a shovel truck. The goal is to prepare a stockpile of supplies that will help protect – and later remediate – roads from the dangerous snow and ice expected to arrive on Saturday morning.
As the storm has shifted into more of an ice threat, the risk of hazardous road conditions and widespread power outages has sharply increased. It takes only a quarter of an inch to disrupt power lines. As of Friday morning, most of the region is projected to receive upwards of half an inch.
Paul Roberts, a maintenance engineer with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, said the state has already put down hundreds of thousands of gallons of brine on roads. He said there are more than 2,000 workers, and an additional fleet of contractors, ready to jump into action as the state anticipates black ice and other hazardous driving conditions through early next week.
“In my time as a county manager engineer, this is the largest storm that the weather forecasts are predicting,” said Roberts, who has worked for the department for more than 20 years. “We hope for the best and not for the worst.”
Doug Outlaw, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, echoes this. He told BPR this winter storm has the potential to be one of the worst ice storms the region has seen in over two decades. To that end, officials are warning that extended and widespread power outages are possible and travel will be dangerous.
David Uchiyama, a spokesperson with the transportation department, urged people to avoid traveling this weekend if at all possible.
“It's better to stay home and snuggle than get on the road and struggle,” he quipped.
In preparation, Western North Carolina residents have been running around to local grocery and hardware stores, searching for propane gas, hand warmers, camp stoves and bottled water. Many shelves are empty of items like soup, milk and bread.
“I would say people have been stressed out. The term I would use to describe it would be ‘bedlam,’” said Vesna Albano, a cashier at Ace Hardware in North Asheville. By Thursday afternoon, the store had sold out of propane and ice melt was flying off the shelves.
“People have been flocking to the store. They've been crowding around it. And there have been some people that have almost been reduced to tears because they feel or they're worried that they're not going to be able to get the supplies they need,” she continued. “And I think a lot of that is probably residual panic after what happened with Helene last year.”
But for every person panicking, there also seems to be someone else thinking about how to help. That included Preston Maroney, who stopped by Harris Teeter on Thursday afternoon for supplies to feed members of the homeless community.
“I got everything I need. I’ve got a few minutes” he said. “I've got a couple loaves of bread, a couple of cans, and we'll make a big pot of chili for them.”
There’s also people thinking about the critters. Michael McClure left Ace Hardware on Thursday afternoon, with two carbon monoxide sensors in hand, along with a 20 pound bag of birdseed.
“I noticed that the birds seem to be hungrier when it gets colder outside,” he said.
