MANSFIELD — Batten down the hatches, put some plastic wrap on those windows, and snuggle under a blanket.
It’s about to be bone-chillingly cold and icy on the roadways across north central Ohio on Saturday, Sunday and into Monday.
Yet the non-caped crusader plow crews from the Ohio Department of Transportation, City of Mount Vernon, Ashland County and Richland County are ready to keep their respective communities safe.
Three words will ring throughout these crews’ heads throughout this snowpocalypse: Brine, salt and plow. Each of these groups use those tools a bit differently from the other.
But these pieces of advice are common across the state: If you don’t absolutely have to be on the roads, don’t be. If you are on the roads, be cautious as always, but be extra cautious when you see a plow truck braving the winter weather.
ODOT’s plan of attack
ODOT’s Press Secretary Matt Bruning kept it short and to the point in a video ODOT released on Thursday.
“ODOT will be out ahead of, during and after the storm but roads are going to be very, very snow-covered over the weekend. This is going to be a very challenging storm,” Bruning said.
The expected high amount of snowfall combined with Arctic temperatures makes for a difficult scenario.
Once temperatures dip below 20 degrees, road salt becomes less effective — something Knox Pages learned more about in this story.
To combat this situation, ODOT will sometimes add brine, beet molasses, sodium chloride or magnesium chloride to salt to strengthen its de-icing capabilities.
Crews also typically use ODOT’s brine mixture of 23-percent salt and 77-percent water during the pre-treat process.
However, depending on the storm, brine can also be rendered ineffective if used at the wrong time, which could produce slush on roadways.
“If you don’t have to travel this weekend, please don’t. Just stay home, it’ll make it so much easier for our crews and everybody involved,” Bruning said.
According to ODOT’s Winter Media Center, 30 ODOT plow trucks have been involved in accidents so far this winter.
In comparison to last year, a total of 54 trucks were hit all season, Bruning said.
“We just need people to give them room to work. They’re going to be going at a much slower speed than you would normally travel on the roadways,” he said.
“We have too many cases where people rear-end them because they’re going too fast for the conditions and they can’t stop.”
Watch ODOT’s full video with Bruning below.
Richland County’s snowy road map
Unless crews get behind in fighting off this storm, Richland County will man 11 trucks this weekend. But it has the ability to get up to 15 or 16 on the road if needed, Richland County Engineer Adam Gove said.
“It’ll just take some time to get [the roads clear], especially if we have high rates of snow and wind and all that — it could get pretty messy,” Gove said.
Before the snow starts to fall, Gove’s crews will have the ability to pre-treat bridge decks and overpasses,
“It really depends on how the storm goes. If it’s going to be wet and rainy first, we don’t typically pre-treat but I’ll have to check to see what our stance is on this one,” he said.
In terms of respecting Richland County’s plow drivers, Gove gave drivers a few tips.
“If you get up close to the back of a snow plow, they may not see you behind their truck at intersections,” Gove said. “They are making several movements to clear those intersections.
“They are pulling ahead and backing up a couple of times while they clean that intersection, so, it’s important that you just kind of stay back and give them room.”
The county’s engineer did say that three of the area’s plow trucks have been in accidents this winter.
“[Three is] a lot, I can’t say that we have one on average, it’s hopefully less than that. But, to have three in a matter of a couple of weeks earlier this year, that’s a lot,” he said.
As for the county’s salt supply, Gove said “knock on wood, we have a little bit of a reserve” and that they should be fine for this storm and possibly future events.
“We have a little bit more left that we can order through our [ODOT] salt contract that we will definitely be ordering before too long,” Gove added.
Richland County has an ODOT salt contract for only half of its supply, the other half comes from a county contract with local municipalities.
“We put together a county contract that a lot of the townships, villages and small municipalities take part in,” Gove said.
“So, we split what we use at the county level between those two contracts, and we do that so those townships that order just a small amount can get on our contract as well.”
During those very low temperatures, Gove said the county adds brine to the salt to make it more effective. It plans to use a beet juice-like product at some point as well.
Mount Vernon gets ready for the storm
The City of Mount Vernon’s Street Department just test ran a new brine truck recently and the department looks to use its pre-treating abilities for the upcoming storm.
The department’s superintendent, Tom Hinkle, said that for now the brine mixture comes from ODOT.
“In the near future, we do plan on buying the equipment to meld our own salt and make our own salt solution,” Hinkle said.
The superintendent purchased 1,500 tons of salt for this winter season from ODOT in March 2025, but his crews have used “approximately 1,600 tons of salt” this season, he said.
“We’ve responded to 16 notable snow or ice events so far this winter. That’s quite a bit compared to the last few winters we’ve had around here,” Hinkle said.
An additional 300 tons of salt are on the way to Hinkle’s salt barn. The added tons should exceed the 110% the city is contractually able to purchase with 2025-26 prices.
Yet Hinkle can buy more salt — it just might be more or less expensive.
Ashland County lays out its response to the coming weather
Unlike the other groups, Ashland County does not use a pre-treat mix, according to Ashland County Engineer Edward Meixner.
“The way we respond is really no different than if there’s an inch of snow or seven inches forecasted,” Meixner said. “We just know that this is probably going to be a longer one, and it’s going to take some more time to get the roads clear.”
He noted it’s beneficial that the storm looks to be hitting later in the day on Saturday and then into Sunday as there is typically less traffic.
“As we plow, it’ll still be snowing. We’ll have to keep going back and plowing again and running our routes again, eventually, till it stops and we get things cleaned up,” Meixner said.
The county runs 10 plow routes and it’s very important that people are aware of plow trucks while on the road.
“A lot of times those guys are tired or the trucks are all dirty and covered in salt so its tough to see. [People] need to be very defensive drivers to make sure that they’re keeping themselves safe as well as the truck driver,” Meixner said.
No Ashland County plow trucks have been involved in any accidents this winter, he said.
At the beginning of October, Meixner said Ashland County received 2,500 tons of salt; putting its total at around 6,000 tons.
“In a normal year, we will average around 4,000 tons, so we’re OK at this moment. But, there’s a lot of people calling me up, wanting to borrow from our stockpile and we’ve responded to that for the most part,” he said.
Additionally, Ashland County does not use extra products mixed in with its salt when temperatures plunge.
Meixner said his crews instead reduce the amount of salt they spread and focus on plowing to clear roads.