LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — If you would have asked Eric Petty, who works with the Little Rock Public Works, early Wednesday morning how he felt about the latest round of winter weather in Arkansas, he would've told you that he felt good.
"We're in good shape with plenty of material stockpiled up and our equipment's doing good. We're in good shape for this storm," Petty said Thursday morning. "If this forecast holds, it'll probably be a bridge and overpass situation."
The winter weather came a little earlier than anticipated. Fast forward to this afternoon, with sleet coming down fast in Little Rock. Despite that, Petty said that he's still feeling good, they're just starting earlier than expected.
"We have actually loaded our trucks, and the trucks have been loaded, and they've went out to the bridges and overpasses. Try to get some material down on those as soon as we can." Petty said Thursday afternoon.
Those bridges and overpasses are extremely important. So are the roads that run under them, especially highways.
This is something that caught the attention of Dave Parker, spokesperson for ARDOT, who said they've seen significantly worse conditions on the highways, especially north of Little Rock.
"We got word that hey, we're gonna have to get out a little quicker, react with our salt trucks here in central Arkansas," Parker said.
The crews have stayed busy and the storm pushed their plans up, much like Petty's.
"We did not do an extensive pretreatment here in central Arkansas," Parker said. "We did not because the prediction was for rain and as you said, it would have just washed it all away."
Unfortunately, this could lead to more problems on the roads, but Parker said that's expected when rain washes away your progress.
"We're trying to focus on it, but I think for right now, scale of 1-10, we're about a 5. We're hanging in there okay," he said.
This is something that both Petty and Parker know, that things will be okay. Their crews have what they need to get roads back on track.
"The trucks that are driving now, they'll continue working today until 7 o'clock when the night shift will show," Petty said. "We'll do our transition then we'll do our 12-hour shifts as needed."