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Local officials are warning residents roads are coated with a sheet of ice and urging drivers to stay off the road unless it is an emergency.
Road commissions say crews are working around the clock to get everything salted.
Dave Pettersch is the Managing Director for the Gladwin County Road Commission.
“This is about the worst conditions possible to be driving around a blade truck,” Pettersch said.
Pettersch is tipping his hat to his drivers after what he calls, ‘the most challenging day in very a long time.’
“Even when we chain up, the trucks are going 10, 12 miles an hour at most. Everywhere they go is slippery, everywhere they’re turning it takes them 10 times longer to do it. Every time they’d get something cleared out, it would ice back over,” Pettersch said.
Bob North is the Emergency Management Director for Gladwin County.
“We’ve had multiple roads that are unsafe to drive on, they’re extremely slick. This morning there were multiple accidents with cars in the ditches,” North said.
He said even emergency vehicles struggle on ice.
“There have been some slowdowns or difficulties on medical responses. We’re advising everybody to please stay home and don’t drive home unless it’s absolutely an emergency,” North said.
North and Pettersch said it will be a while until the roads are safe.
“We’re not getting a break, the temperatures are going to continue to fall,” North said.
“It’s going to be a long clean up. With temperatures diving for the next four, five days there’s just not a lot we can do with this much ice,” Pettersch said.