Putnam Highway Staff Preparing for Weather

The Putnam County Highway Department is cutting vacation short to prepare the roads for possible inclement weather Sunday and Monday.

Putnam County Road Supervisor Randy Jones said the Highway Department was closed till January 6th but with inclement weather likely to happen the department will come in on Sunday to begin preparing roads for the weather. Jones said the department is currently prepping salt trucks so they can begin pouring salt on roads as soon as the inclement weather begins.

“It melts the ice and the snow,” Jones said. “We got plows on the front of our trucks that if it’s a wet mushy snow we can plow it off but after it turns to ice we put salt down.”

Jones said the county does not use brine on roads as it takes many different types of equipment to use the solution. Jones said the Highway Department will focus on the East side of the county and may not get to every county road as the department only has five salt trucks and over 700 miles of county roads.

“The mountains to the east of course it gets colder when you head towards Monterey,” Jones said. “It’ll freeze up there first before it does down here. Usually, we will start trucks up that way.”

Jones said the department cannot pour salt too early as rain can disperse the salt off the roads. Jones said the department will have to keep a close eye on the weather.

“They are saying now you know that it’s going to be starting with icy precipitation and then rain and turn back into snow that evening,” Jones said. “It’s one of them iffy things. You don’t really know exactly till it gets closer to time what’s going to happen. We will just keep watching what it’s doing West of us.”

Jones said though vacation time has been cut short his guys are a phone call away and will be ready for when they are needed.