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.
We can’t really focus on one area because it’s statewide. The only good thing, I guess, is that this is happening over the weekend when the roads are usually, people aren’t going to work and school and that sort of thing, but that’s about it. Otherwise, this is a very big test, first storm of 2026.
Daniel Caruth: Yeah. Well, can you talk about, , because you guys are statewide, you’re trying to hit all of these roads and communities that have varying degrees of infrastructure in each spot. How is it to try and coordinate that kind of effort? And what does it take to do that?
Parker: Well, fortunately, , ArDOT is built in a way, we have ten districts, , with about 250 or so maintenance workers at each of those districts. So we’re spread out wide and well enough to cover it. So we’re good on manpower. That's another good thing about this, I guess it’s the first storm. Therefore we are topped off with equipment, supplies, and manpower. We’re rested and ready to go. But we've been talking about this system. Gosh, four or five, six days now. Coordinating who’s going where, who’s doing what. We have our strike team, which is a specialized unit of about seventy five experienced snowplow operators, salt spreader operators, people who’ve been out in conditions like this before, they’re ready to be deployed to which area may get hit the hardest.
And I can’t tell you, is it going to be 14 inches of snow in Rogers, or is it going to be an inch of ice in Camden, Arkansas, which would be devastating. So usually we measure storm by the duration, the intensity, the temperature, all those things. And this one is pegging high on all those. It’s going to be a very intense storm. It’s going to last for days. The temperature is going to be low. All those things signal we have to be, we’re around the clock, certainly. But we have to be at our very best, from now through Wednesday. Maybe we’ll get a break by then.
Caruth: And looking at the past couple of years and I know you guys budget and prepare for this every year. Are there different areas as far as equipment or materials or places where you guys have put effort or money into?
Parker: Yeah, I mean, overall, we certainly have 121, for example, 121 salt houses start the year off with 78,000 cubic yards of salt. It’s distributed differently, certainly our districts in the northwest part of the state or Jonesboro get more salt supply starting out than say, southwest or southeast. That’s just common sense would say, the history will tell you that. So, yeah, it’s distributed differently.
But overall, we’re in good shape with supplies and equipment, 700 snow plows and 600 salt spreaders. Where’s best equipped as we’ve ever been, really. And thankfully, the commission and the department saw years ago, we’ve got to make these investments and this is why we made those investments. This is a great example of that because we have worked with other states, neighbouring states who just do not have this type of equipment. And times like this, which you never know, it’s difficult, but we’re ready to go on that end. We’re in good shape with equipment and supplies and everything.
Caruth: And then as far as when these things get kind of dangerous, it’s not just the weather. It’s also people being out in these conditions and maybe not heeding advice that you guys give. What do people need to know to be safe? What do you want people to kind of remember and understand as we see this kind of first storm of the winter?
Parker: Well, I mean my goal is certainly not to make people panic, but to tell people to plan and be prepared. And if you haven’t taken care of what you need to have for the next four or five days, by now, the clock is ticking. You need to take care of that today. Tomorrow is too late. You need to understand that these conditions are going to be really bad out on the roadway. I understand people have to work. I’m not talking about first responders. I’m not talking about truck drivers who have to get things across.
We're in Arkansas. It's in a really interesting, you know, middle of the country. People depend on us to get their goods from east to west. We’ve got two major interstates, 30 and 40. So a lot of people are depending on us ArDOT to keep the roads somewhat passable, not only to get to work, but also to move commercial goods across the country. So there’s that we’ve got to factor in.
But people need to understand that if you’re out Saturday night. Friday night in the middle of this. And something happens where you can't drive or you get behind a major backup. You need to have things in your car. You need to be prepared. This is not one of those, hey, if you can, get some things together because it’s going to be brutally cold as well. That's the real difference in this one. We get a lot of systems here. As I said earlier, it snows and it’s 28 to 32 degrees. And it’s a nice snowfall, fun for the kids to play in that sort of thing. And then the next day it warms up to 38 and it’s gone, , with some sunshine. Not the case on this one. Not the case at all.
And this could be dangerous cold conditions. And people need to understand that. Please stay at home. If you can take care of the things you need to take care of. Now, make a list. What do I need to have for the next three or four days? When I can’t get out of my neighborhood? I can’t get out of my house, inside. I could lose power if I’m in those areas with ice. That’s the other thing, man. We could see some power outages and trees down, power lines down in the southern counties.
And if those trees come down with heavy ice on them, we can’t treat those roads. That’s the other thing you have to factor in. If a tree gets a half inch of ice in southeast Arkansas and it falls across a highway, we can’t treat it because we can’t get to it. That’s another thing that could happen that we have to factor in. So, it’s really going to be a tough weekend. And that’s why I urge and encourage people to please stay home if you can.
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