Wild Weather, Slushy Roads

Sat, Feb 1, 12pm

Good afternoon, SLE. I finished driving every road about an hour ago.

Wish we could catch a break with the weather. The rain after heavy snow (followed by more snow and rain again last night) really has made for difficult conditions.

As promised, the roads were plowed again early this morning to clean up the slush. The roads were then sanded in all the usual areas of concern.

Additional sanding is tentatively scheduled for Sunday night. We must wait until then because everything is melting. We need it to freeze again so sand stays on top.

The temp is expected to drop on Sunday night and stay below freezing for the next week. This is the best window for additional sanding.

That said, I’m going to appeal to your North Idaho spirit and ask for your patience and understanding while we ride this out until it’s possible to put down more sand, and have it not melt right into the road.

This means we all need to drive even more slowly and with caution.

While I’ve successfully break-tested all the key spots, conditions will be changing throughout today and tomorrow. Please let me know if you find any areas that cannot wait until Sunday night for more sand.

Also, if you’ve cleaned up your driveway, please take a look and see if you need to take another pass to clear the road of any excess snow that’s been pushed out. Otherwise, we’ll have icy speed bumps in those spots. The road is melting too but I can see where more cleanup is needed.

Thanks for everyone’s help to get through this wild weather. I can be reached at roads@spiritlakeeast.org, and I will provide an update to all, as needed. Drive safe out there and enjoy this beautiful Saturday. Jon