What's Happening MoCo?

What's Happening with the Coming Snow? - Roads

• Derrick Kenny • Season 12 • Episode 111

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A winter storm is closing in, and we’re pulling back the curtain on how Montgomery County keeps people moving when snow stacks up and temperatures plunge. With Storm Operations Center manager Tim Serano, we walk through the real plan: early weather briefings, staffing and contractor call-ups, and why brining primaries and feeders changes the game before the first flake lands.

You’ll hear how a 23 percent salt brine creates a thin barrier that prevents snow from bonding to pavement, making plowing faster and cleaner. We talk through the order of operations during an active storm, why crews may cycle on arterials before shifting into neighborhoods, and how jurisdiction lines matter—state-numbered routes and city streets like Rockville and Gaithersburg have their own teams. Safety stays front and center: giving plows room, avoiding abrupt moves around spreaders, and planning trips with updated timelines.

We also spotlight the county’s snow portal at montgomerycountymd.gov/snow, If this was useful, follow the show, share it with a neighbor, and leave a quick review so more residents can stay storm-ready.

SPEAKER_00:

Good day and welcome to a special edition of What's Happening Moco. There is a storm coming. There's a storm coming. We don't know how much snow we're going to get here in the Montgomery County area, but we do know we'd like to be prepared. And helping us be prepared today is Tim Serano with the Department of Transportation. How are you today, Tim? I'm well. How are you? I'm great. I'm great as everyone in the uh the DMV area might be a little excited about the mention of the four-letter word snow. We're here and we're glad to have Montgomery County, a very thoughtful and prepared Department of Transportation. And you are the leader for the emergency services for the Department of Transportation.

SPEAKER_01:

Is that correct? Yes, so the Storm Operations Center manager, we I manage the uh kind of the Storm Operations Center is kind of the hub of our entire operation. So we have, you know, we have plows on the road, um, we have staff working doing sidewalks, no removal, um, and all of that information funnels into the storm operations center, and we kind of disseminate the information, and we use some of that to you know uh publish that on our website. Um, when we also use that for reporting purposes.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. And so I'm going to ask you a few of the questions you might hear all the time that maybe people at home may want to know. At what point do you start preparing the roads uh for a major storm like we're anticipating now?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we actually we've had some internal conversations with the National Weather Service and other weather reporting agencies. And that started about uh Monday, and you know, they they let us know that there's uh an event that we should be looking, you know, preparing for this upcoming weekend. And after that, conversation with them, we still have those every day. Uh we're gonna have those continuously throughout the week. Um, but we start our prelimin preliminary planning. So um just making sure we have enough staffing in place, making we're calling contractors, putting them on notice that we're probably going to need them this weekend. Um, we're gonna be salt brining a lot of roads starting tomorrow, Thursday. Uh, and that salt brine operation.

SPEAKER_00:

And and what is just for people that don't may not understand, I don't know if I fully understand, what is salt brining?

SPEAKER_01:

So salt brine is a solution of salt and water. It's 25 23% salt. And we put that down on most of the all of the primary roadways in the county, all the arterial roadways. Um the think of if you're in a neighborhood, the primary, the feeder roads that you know feed into the larger roads will salt most of the issues. And we can't salt every road, but we try to at least you know get some treatment down, pre-treatment down to help uh you know alleviate the event.

SPEAKER_00:

And and what do what does the salt brining do? Does that like ensure that it melts the ice or kind of prevents ice from uh forming? Or what are what are some of the goals of doing the treatment?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so the salt brine, it it kind of cre creates a barrier or a uh uh a barrier between the roadway and the snow so that it's easier to push off when we get these type of events because we're we're most likely going to have to be doing some plowing. So that will help, you know, the the initial snow from sticking to the roadway.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Now, uh there's some questions I'd like to ask, or so many questions I would want to ask um of the Department of Transportation. There's one question that comes up all the time. Uh, when is my street is going to get addressed? And then how do how do I find out? Is there a way for us to find out, meaning residents of Montgomery County, to find out um what's the status and when someone might be able to help them out?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. So uh we have a snow portal and it's an it's an online website that anyone can access. Um the website is Montgomery County Md.gov slash snow. And all of the information that our snow plots have, um they have uh you know like snow trackers kind of on them. Oh wow. We're able to use that information. It's all it's all loaded into an application that we use, and that information is then published onto our county website. So it will show you if you look it up, you can maybe even type in your address into that snow portal, and it'll tell you the percentage completion of your route, and it'll it'll even give you an estimated time frame of when we expect to get that route completed. Oh wow, that's that's incredible. And and where do people find that information again? Montgomery county md.gov slash snow.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, all right.

SPEAKER_01:

So we also will sorry, I just want to add one more thing. So during the initial operate, like during the initial plowing operation, um, we're gonna have to continuously treat most likely the primary roadways before we get into the neighborhoods. So it may be a while before we get into those neighborhoods, and we'll publish, we have a banner on the top page of that snow portal website. Okay, and we'll provide our operation uh plan at that time, like whatever operation level we're at at that time.

SPEAKER_00:

And what's the URL again?

SPEAKER_01:

Montgomery County MD.gov slash snow.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. And are there some are there some what what are the areas that you are not responsible for treating or plowing? Uh I believe there are and I may be wrong. Are there areas of the county that the Department of Transportation does not provide plowing for? Or treats?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, there are several jurisdictions. Um the big ones I can think of are City of Rockville, uh, City of Gaithersburg, but there's a lot of a lot of other small ones as well. And then also the state roadways. So any roadway that has a route number, like Route 108, uh 118, the MD 118, when you see those, those are maintained by the state highway administration. Okay. And we don't maintain those.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, say I'm John Q um Montgomery, uh, not the founder, and I'm driving, I want to get out. I just need to get out that day uh when it's snowing, and I get in my car. How should I respond when I see a truck going down the street that's treating uh treating the street for snow or ice or whatever?

SPEAKER_01:

Try to give them some distance. Um you know, the the more distance we have between residential cars, uh, you know, that just helps our operation out tremendously. Um, you know, we're out there trying to do a job, we're we're trying to clear the roadways and open it up for the public, but you know, it take it does take time, and um the more help, the more distance everyone can provide us, the easier it is for all of us.

SPEAKER_00:

Now there's this thing in Montgomery County, is it's things something sometimes people are not totally aware of it. Call black ice. Could you tell us what is black ice and how to look out for it? And how do you recommend us driving, not only when there's snow, but when there's uh I guess when it's cold like it is now, and there may be uh moisture in the roads.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, black ice forms when you have uh water on the roadway that that you know just gets so cold that the water freezes on the roadway. And um, you know, that is challenging for drivers and even our our crews. It's hard to treat black ice. And you usually see it after the snow event comes through when we've already cleared the roadways of snow, but then it melts back onto the road and then refreezes at night. So we'll we'll always have crews addressing that. We usually have crews remaining several days after the snow event just to address black ice. So yeah, it's something to keep keep your uh self aware of.

SPEAKER_00:

Um how much how much snow, I mean, how much uh salt and brine material do you guys have stored away? And how much do you think you'll be using uh and in the in this storm?

SPEAKER_01:

So we we have a capacity of a hundred thousand tons of salt, rock salt. Okay, yeah. And that's this dispersed between a few of our maintenance depots. We have seven maintenance depots, and uh we we try to keep that stocked, fully stocked as much as we can. Um, so we have a good amount of salt ready for this event and also for the rest of the winter. I think we're in good shape with that. Salt and brine as well. We uh we make our own salt brine, we have storage tanks for that, and um yeah, we're we're ready.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. And here's the other question that some people may have and some people may have experienced in the past. Where should we park? Is there are there places where we should not park? Are there places that we can park or that you encourage us to park, or what are some of the best practices for um people as they uh start to shelter in place in the in advance of the storm?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I would say if you if you have a driveway, park in the driveway that provides our plows more room to get through the street. Also, when you're uh shoveling your driveway, the plow's gonna come through and push the snow and you know, leave some a little bit of uh snow on at the end of your driveway. What's one thing that helps residents is if you shovel, if you're facing the street and you shovel all the snow to the right of your driveway, that way there won't be as much snow buildup when the when the plow comes through and inevitably you know gets a little bit of snow on everyone's driveway.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, fantastic, fantastic. Hey, well, Tim, uh, thank you so much, you and the uh Department of Transportation, for what you've done in the past and what you're going to be doing in the future. And please feel free to reach out to the What's Happening Moco podcast to give us some updates because we're interested in knowing what's happening with the