Judge's Report: Winter Snow

The new year has come with the company of a winter storm. When events like this come, we are forced to lay everything else aside and prepare for the aftermath of them. We were fortunate with this storm to see only minimal power outages and those were mostly restored within 24 hours of going out. With the amount of freezing rain we saw, this event could've been much worse than what it was. I spent a lot of time with our emergency management department the first 2 days of the storm making sure we had the resources in place should we have long term outages and major damage. Our EM department and first responders were well prepared and on top of every call that came in. Road department workers were out every day, clearing roads as best they could and clearing trees. The magistrates were a great asset during this event attending to every call as best they could. I appreciate the dedication of our employees, first responders and officials in events like this. 
We are expecting another significant snowfall this weekend. Once again, I am going to advise that unless it's absolutely necessary, please don't be out traveling. I understand that things arise that you need to be out and that's understandable, but it makes the task of trying to clear roads much easier when workers are not worrying about cars that are on the road. The temperature will be a major factor of how clean the roads get when we are out working on them. We use sand on county roads and not salt. Our road budget doesn't allow for salt so we do the best we can. I remember 25 years ago the County didn't have hardly any equipment to handle snow events. We have equipment now but we have more roads, more citizens on the roads and more to take care of now than ever before. Please have patience with us during these major winter events. 
Have a blessed week.