Bartholomew County to maintain red travel warning restrictions

Bartholomew County will remain under a red travel warning at least overnight.

County officials this afternoon reviewed current road conditions and opted to keep the highest level of travel restrictions in place. They will be re-evaluating conditions at a meeting tomorrow morning.

Bartholomew County Emergency Management Department wants to update you on how the snow removal process and priorities work in these extreme weather events. Officials say that the county prioritize primary routes and critical locations first. That includes 25th Street, Central Avenue, Tenth Street, County Road 450 South, Southern Crossing, and other high-traffic corridors. They also clear areas around the hospital, fire stations, law enforcement facilities, and other critical public safety locations.

Only after those routes and locations are clear, will crews move on to secondary roads and into residential neighborhoods.

They say that the large amount of snow and deep drifting slows progress and the extreme cold temperatures reduce the effectiveness of treatments including salt, brine and sand.

County officials said recently that once temperatures drop to near 0 or below, salt no longer works to melt the ice. They say that at that point, plows are just scraping the top layer of ice on the roadway.

The Columbus Department of Public Works explained recently that snow plows are designed to push snow but once vehicles drive on the snow, it becomes a packed snow and ice mix that is very difficult to remove. Especially without damaging the underlying pavement.