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Athens Prepares for Winter Storm – That Didn’t Happen
By: Mary Puzder
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Residents of Athens prepared themselves for snow and ice after the National Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Warning for Athens County from 10 p.m. Tuesday until 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.
Precautionary Measures
Ohio University custodial worker Michael Dailey normally takes care of Baker Center’s interior, but the chance of ice and snow leads to additional work salting outside.
“First thing when we come in, we check the outside areas ourselves, make sure they are safe. Since we work here at Baker, we carry a radio, and so the fourth floor will notify us if there are any bad spots,” he said. “We try to stay on top of it.”
Dailey said the weather was not too bad, and appreciates the city’s proactive efforts to make driving safer in the snow.
“I think the city has been doing a lot better, as of lately. It used to be a lot tougher to get around in bad weather but over the last decade or so I think they’ve done a lot better,” Dailey said. “They begin brining and salting the roads much earlier, they seem to have plenty of salt, and plenty of trucks to go around, where before it seemed like you had to wait a long time before your road would get any coverage.”
Careful Driving
When expecting poor driving conditions, Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith’s deputies disperse throughout the county to evaluate road conditions. At 10:30 a.m., the Athens County Emergency Management Agency announced a level one snow emergency. It is the Sheriff’s decision to call snow emergencies.
“It’s really informative,” he said. “We call the road levels just so people can know the road conditions when they come out and drive on the roads.”
The levels are reported immediately, so drivers know to take proper precautions while driving.
OU sophomore Adra Mcclintock commutes to Ohio University from Meigs County. She said she did not anticipate any cancellations despite the storm warning. She woke Wednesday morning to find her first class canceled, but did not find any trouble driving to class later in the day.