City Of Tulsa Crews Prepare For Winter Storm

Tulsa City leaders are preparing for the next round of winter weather ahead of this weekend.

The City of Tulsa told News On 6 cleaning crews have a lot of ground to cover and are hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. 

Tulsa Street Maintenance Manager Tim McCorkell said his team is prioritizing major five lane roads and busy intersections.

The city is staffed around the clock with more than 200 people working 12-hour shifts. The city said they have about 8,000 tons of salt stocked up and 60 trucks available and said they are prepared to pull even more equipment and manpower from the city’s sewer and water departments if conditions downtown deteriorate. 

McCorkell believes they’ll be doing a lot of plowing and said they have a sand and salt mixture to apply to curvy streets.

He said they have a lot of road blocks: running the risk of wind blowing snow back onto the roadways and cars dragging the melted ice to dry areas of the street. 

“I mean the cold is what’s going to be the biggest issue cause if it stays cold for a long time below freezing, you know, that might have an effect on our melt from the salt,” McCorkell said. 

He said they are not addressing secondary streets at this time. 

“Just kind of got to address it as it comes in,” said McCorkell. “See what it really does, but we have plenty of crews ready to go and we’ve got experience people to deal with it.”