Soon breaking news right now,
an update from the state Capitol.
The message from the governor
the state is ready and he wants
you to be ready to director
Stallings with Gima at the MIC.
Now talking about weather preps,
including bringing and
suspending construction.
Let's listen in to the update.
Is going to possibly happen.
Some of the warning signs
are white or grayish.
Yellowing of the skin,
numbness of the skin that feels
unusually firmer, waxy.
If this happens,
frostbite areas are typically numb.
Do not put them near a heat
source to try to warm them.
You will not fill the damage you're
doing to the body because it's warm.
So if you do experience some numbness,
wrap yourself in some type of blanket,
try to sip on something warm and
start warming the core temperatures
and finally hypothermia.
It will happen if the body drops
below 95 degrees and in these temps,
if you're out for a long periods of time,
it can happen.
Make sure you use those.
And precautions when you come in warm non
alcoholic beverages are the best options,
so make sure you're keeping wise.
And finally,
my final point that I want to make
clear is if your power is out,
most likely your neighbors are too.
And in this type of event it's important
that we know we have one another's back.
Check on your neighbors,
check on your family and I
will get through all this
together Commissioner McMurray.
Thank you, director stallins. First,
I want to just tell everybody again,
we are preparing for this
extreme cold weather event.
As the governor mentioned,
there will be precipitation Thursday
evening into early Friday morning.
And as the National Weather
Service has predicted,
there is a potential for flash freezing
for the moisture that remains on any of
the roadways and bridges across Georgia.
Therefore, out of the abundance of caution,
the Department of Transportation is
moving forward today with Pretreating.
Roads and bridges on state routes and
interstates such to try to get a on
set to keep that precipitation from
freezing as this Arctic blast moves through.
The Department of Transportation
will treat basically from a line
north of Columbus to Augusta
and everything north of there,
as well as I-75 from Macon to the
Tennessee border and everything in between.
That is some 21,000 miles of roadways
that will need to be treated.
This afternoon we will start treating
the roads, not the interstates,
but the roads in Northwest Georgia
and northeast Georgia,
as well as this evening,
the roads in the South metro area.
That would be the state routes
but not the interstates.
Tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM,
we will begin to treat the interstates
from that boundary of Columbus all the
way over to Augusta and Macon North.
This will be working for 12 hour shifts
until we have everything treated and
trying to have everything treated before
the onset of the freezing temperatures
in the wee hours of Friday morning.
And we are confident that we can have
that first application of Brian across
all the state routes and interstates.
And so that's what we'll be
doing starting this afternoon,
in this evening and then
the interstates tomorrow.
I would like to highlight that tomorrow
we ask for your patience while you're.
Out and about.
In fact,
if you don't have to travel tomorrow,
we've suggest you stay home because we
will have to bring these roadways during
the day with over 21,000 miles of Rd.
It just takes that long to
brine that much area.
So we're asking for your cooperation.
If you don't have to be out tomorrow,
stay home and stay warm.
And certainly on Friday morning
we ask that you not get out if
you see a roadway that looks wet
on Friday morning or Friday.
Assume that it is frozen.
We will continue to spot treat any item,
any areas that have ice on them
or they're black ice Friday and
desserty until we get the all clear.
This is all hands effort with this
big geographic area that we're dealing
with and we'll continue to work so that
the roads are passable and acceptable.
I remind you all too that your local
roads and especially subdivision or
neighborhood streets are likely not to be
treated so again as we enter the holiday.
Weekend,
please just stay home if you can,
and let's see how this really
cold Arctic snap may have an
effect on the roadways of Georgia.
And governor, I'll turn it back to you.
Thank you. Well,
thank you Commissioner and director
for those comments. We'll open it
up for any questions you have.
Well, we're working on
getting a drafted right now.
So it'll be here pretty shortly
and it it'll go through midnight,
midnight on Monday.
I think that's our thinking.
Probably go ahead and start it today.
Yeah, statewide.
Just to be clear. Allstate Routes N The
falling and all interstates north of
the Fall line are going to be great.
That's correct. We will be treating
basically the fall line north
of state routes and interstates.
And one other thing I might add is
the express lanes on I-75 and 85 will
be closed Thursday around midnight.
And so we'll we'll wait and assess those
conditions into the weekend so we can
safely open those back up at a later point.
Governor, can you talk about
talking with Georgia Power,
the EC, how prepared they are?
Are they bringing in crews
from out of state? Well,
yeah, I'll, I'll let director
Stallins speak to that.
You know, my biggest concern,
just a couple of things besides
what the team's been dealing with.
We've been talking to the
propane folks out there.
So, you know, a lot of the chicken houses
across state are warmed by propane.
Obviously a lot of residential homes are.
So they just want to make
sure that they can serve.
Our people in in our industry
that's out there and our our
farmers and business folks.
And so that's one of the main
reasons for the state of emergency.
But also we just want to be prepared,
we want people to think about if
they're leaving town this afternoon and
it's still above freezing to remind
them that it's going to be very cold.
So you know the things that
Director Stallings was saying,
opening cabinet doors,
prepare for your travel,
if you were to get stranded,
you know in an out of way place
in 10 degree weather.
To have supplies to get you through
those kind of things to you know,
not completely cut your heat off
when you leave to prevent frozen
pipes and just be aware of of the
potential for the forecast and
heavy winds and extremely cold
temperatures that may be very hard to
get the crews to fix the down power
outage until it's safe to do so.
So we just want people to be thinking
about that and be prepared because we
know obviously with Christmas right
around the corner and the rest of the
holidays that are going on weather.
Is is not of the forefront of people's minds,
even though I think when the winds
pick up like they did this morning,
the temperatures drop.
It will be, it will be so very quickly.
So that's the the biggest things
for me and also just what?
Commissioner McMurray said
just for people to be patient,
so our drivers, Brian,
trucks and other public safety vehicles,
we got on the roads helping with this,
just give them plenty of space,
be courteous,
let them do their work and just
let's not have any accidents
or loss of life because people
get impatient on our roadways.
But Chris,
do you want to speak to the utility partners?
So we have definitely been in
contact with our utility partners,
some of the concerns of like you mentioned.
Everybody's dealing with this cold snap,
so we can't bring in a
lot of folks from outside.
So it's kind of an all hands approach,
everybody's available.
Our main concerns as far as utilities go,
we want to make sure our
nursing homes or senior living,
assisted living places,
hospitals that they are certainly available.
But we will mention that not only with
the winds but these temperatures.
I don't know if you've ever had
to work hydraulic equipment,
it doesn't like cold temps and so it
it slows down response with these
hydraulic lifts and things of that nature.
Whether it's just cold weather or not,
I mean wind or not,
the cold weather itself will slow that down.
And to the governor's point,
if you are going to travel and make
sure someone can get into your home
in the event of an emergency for
you trusted neighbor with a key
or an access code to a garage.
Because if a water main breaks and
you're a couple hours away visiting family,
someone needs to be able to get to
that water meter or that water main
inside your house to shut that down for you.
So make sure you do have those
relationships built in before you travel.
All right. Everybody good.
All right. Thank you, guys. Be safe.
The governor, the governor saying
that a state of emergency because
of this Arctic winter weather
moving in starts today.
It will go through midnight on Monday.
Three major points of concern,
the possibility of power outages,
a black ice on the roadways and
temperatures that the governor pointed out,
we've not experienced in about a decade.
So extensive planning on the state level.
We'll have more from the state
capital coming up for you at
12:30 with that winter weather.