Crews battle roads as wintry mix dumps inches of snow across West Tennessee

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — When the going gets tough these men get going.

“We don’t get a vacation day when stuff like this happens so people can get around,” Region Four Operations Director Michael Welch said.

Welch says his TDOT crews have been working hard all night.

“We met again yesterday and decided we would start coming in at midnight. So about 11 or 12 o’clock we had our guys coming in,” Welch said.

Thursday’s heavy rain made it nearly impossible to pre-salt the roads, but Welch says they did what they could.

“Start doing some placement of salt during the rain where it would melt and give us a good little boundary between the road and whatever would fall and it would be frozen,” Welch said.

All throughout the morning the trucks have been dumping salt on roads then coming back in, getting more salt, and going back out there to those tricky spots trying to keep you safe.

Over 170 trucks and almost 28, 0000 tons of salt in West Tennessee all fighting against the snow.

“We had several cars off in the median on I-40. Probably because they were going too fast,” Welch said.

Officials with the City of Jackson street department say their four trucks have been hard at work since four Friday morning clearing as many main roads as they can.

Madison County Highway Department has one truck dedicated to clearing the roads.

The big message from officials.

“If you don’t have to get out it’s a good day to stay at home,” Welch advised.