OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – A whopping 306 tons of salt is out on town streets. Crews from all totally different sectors have had a busy day, from placing out fires to checking on animals left within the chilly.
“Salt loses its ability to work in temperatures below 15 degrees,” mentioned Raymond Melton, OKC Street Superintendent. “As soon as the temperature rises above 15 degrees, we’ll begin salting along with plowing operations again.”
Oklahoma City mentioned it has 29 salt vans out on the roads. The employees inside are working on 12-hour shifts to deal with the roads.
“So far, we’ve used 306 tons of salt. We have over 10,000 tons of salt in storage,” mentioned Melton.
Melton known as this most up-to-date winter climate state of affairs higher than anticipated.
“We were fearful that we would get a layer of ice, you know, freezing rain underneath this. And so that was our main fear, but we didn’t get that,” he mentioned.
However, Oklahoma City Police Department officers mentioned they’re not responding to crashes if nobody is damage. The determination was made quickly after 7a.m. Wednesday morning.
The Oklahoma City Fire Department mentioned they responded to 15 damage accidents. Firefighters had been additionally busy combating 4 construction fires, together with one close to Northwest forty seventh and Classen. Crews mentioned a homeless man was inside attempting to keep heat.
“He had been burning wood and several other things. He had a fireplace. And then he actually put some plastic bags in it. That was what caused the brown and kind of black smoke from the building,” mentioned Battalion Chief Lance Burnett. “We called the city PD to come out and escort him to a homeless shelter.”
Meanwhile, town’s animal welfare group answered 30 calls from involved neighbors, after metropolis council handed an emergency ordinance final week forward of the storm.
“[Oklahomans] do need to recognize that their animals will freeze to death,” mentioned Jon Gary, the OKC Animal Welfare Superintendent.
If a pet is omitted on this chilly for greater than 30-minutes, homeowners may face a $500 high quality.
“So far, we haven’t had to give any citations for the violations,” mentioned Gary. “By the time we got there, the dogs are already back inside and there’s no issue.”
As of 8:30 p.m., EMSA mentioned they responded to 5 chilly publicity and 5 outside fall calls. Six of them had been taken to the hospital.
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