Grocery store shelves have just a few loaves of bread left, some city streets are pretreated and utility companies are in full blown emergency preparedness. A major winter storm is expected to alter life for the next few days. The Arkansas Department of Transportation is mobilizing for winter precipitation of all kinds in 75 counties. Ozarks at Large’s Daniel Caruth talked with Dave Parker, public information officer, about getting ready for the weather uproar.
Dave Parker: We are planning and preparing for a massive storm to come through, starting really early Friday morning, and Northwest Arkansas and making its way across the state by late afternoon. Meaning massive. Meaning, snow totals anywhere from six eight inches up to a foot north of Little Rock. We’re talking about a lot of sleet. We’re talking about freezing rain. We’re talking about ice potential and a lot of our southern counties. Extreme southeast especially.
Everything possible that we could get out of a winter system followed by bitter, bitter cold temperatures for the next three, four days. So whatever falls Friday, Saturday morning is not going to go away for seventy two hours at least. So those conditions, it’s a challenge in that we have people everywhere, 2,700+ ArDOT workers out now and through this weekend…