While many in the region will fortunately only experience rain, icy roads could be a reality in parts of North Texas if temperatures remain low enough.
Crews from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) have been preparing roadways for potentially slippery conditions.
“Any preventative measures to safeguard life and families and people. Sanding, putting sand down, anything like that is a great thing,” local driver Michael Johnson told Fox 4 KDFW.
It is not only the roads that have been impacted by the region’s severe weather. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, frigid temperatures resulted in a surge of emergency calls regarding carbon monoxide scares this month. The winter weather has also led to frozen pipes in the region, even delaying autopsies at the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office.
According to Tony Hartzel, spokesman for TxDOT, the road treatment “prevents any ice and snow from sticking to the roadway, and reduces that freezing temperature of the roadway just a little bit so that the ice or snow won’t stick to the road and cars that drive over.”
Ice can wreak havoc on North Texas roads. After one of its fire engines was struck by a passing vehicle, the Grapevine Fire Department urged residents to slow down when driving during the cold weather.