The City of Peoria is taking a few new approaches to tackle winter weather on the road. The City previously relied on a special salt-spray for roads to prevent hazardous conditions. Sie Maroon is with the Peoria Public Works Department. He says crews this season will aim to start spraying the material far before severe winter weather:
“We could get out two, three days in advance of a storm and spray this, and as long as it doesn’t rain it’ll stay on the pavement. So then, when it starts to snow and then the tires from the cars, it’s almost like chewing up rock salt and it starts to activate it.”
Maroon says crews are also planning to use an industrial snow blower during weather events:
“That can actually blow snow into a truck, or we can actually clear streets, like if we have drifting out north, basically it’ll blow snow off the pavement, or blow snow into a vehicle, into a truck and we can haul it away.”
Maroon says the city plans to have about 8,500 tons of road salt ordered or stored for this season.