CRANBERRY, Pa. — The Cranberry Township Public Works Office is essentially a traffic command center.
Large screens are mounted to the wall showing current road conditions, live traffic cameras, and the weather forecast.
One of those screens and computers shows data from the township’s pavement temperature sensors.
“We have sensors throughout the township, and in a storm like this, it’s very important,” Public Works Director Kelly Maurer said. “This is all based on AT. So it’s taking the weather forecast, and it’s putting it together with those pavement temperatures. So it’s just another level that really pinpoints for us in the winter maintenance realm when we need to have the crews out there.”
On Wednesday, crews could see throughout the day that the roads were above freezing.
Then, the program shows a drop off when the sensors predict they’ll freeze.
“So, we’re seeing between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. tonight we should, we may get a flash freeze,” Maurer said. “Any of this precipitation that has fallen today, the water on the road, any of that snow that’s going to be slush is going to freeze. So that’s what we’re keying in for tonight and when we feel we’ll have our full crew deployed.”
Meanwhile, PennDOT District 10 told Channel 11’s Andrew Havranek they have 166 plow trucks across Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Indiana, and Jefferson counties to cover more than 7,000 snow lane miles.
“It’s a lot of roadway to cover, especially in a mixed bag kind of storm that we’re getting, so that is why we encourage folks to not travel if you don’t need to,” said Christina Gibbs with PennDOT District 10.
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