Snow blankets much of the county

Russellville Mayor David Grissom and his daughter, Kate, work on a snowman outside the Russellville City Hall on Wednesday.

After parts of the county saw a light accumulation of snow on Tuesday morning, much of the county experienced several inches of snow accumulation this past Wednesday as a two-day winter storm event moved through the area.

According to the National Weather Service in Huntsville, Russellville saw average snow accumulations on Wednesday of 2.5 inches and the city of Phil Campbell saw accumulations of 4 inches. Other areas in the county were not officially logged by the NWS.

In Russellville, Mayor David Grissom said all county departments worked together to make sure there were as few problems associated with this weather event as possible.

“All the department heads met together on Sunday afternoon after church to decide what the best plan would be,” Grissom said.

“It’s always best in situations like this to make sure everyone is on the same page, so we set up a command center at the Russellville Fire Department and that’s what we tried to do throughout the next several days.”

Russellville Street Department Superintendent Roy Price said his department made preparations to keep city roads as safe as possible in the icy conditions.

“We made sure we had all of our equipment ready to go and that everything was functioning properly, and we also made sure we had enough sand and salt to put down on the roads,” Price said.

“There are several spots in the city that we call ‘hot spots’ that always tend to ice pretty bad when the weather is like this, so we made sure we covered those spots and the main roads first. Once we get the salt and sand on them, they start to clear up pretty quick.”

Price said the Russellville Police Department was also a big help and assisted the street department with the dump truck’s snow plow attachment, all of which was acquired earlier in 2013.

“We really appreciate all the police department did to help us make sure the roads were safe,” Price said.

Russellville Police Chief Chris Hargett said they had minimal problems that they had to assist with, mainly because the roads were in fairly good shape.

“One of the worst spots seemed to be on North Jackson as you got to the four-lane,” he said.

“One of our biggest problems was having cars go off in the ditch. What people don’t realize is that if we see a problem area that looks like it would be hazardous to drive on, we put up our own barricades.

“A lot of the problems were coming from people ignoring the barricades and driving around them into areas that were hazardous.

“Other than those problems, we were very fortunate that we did not have any major accidents or any injuries reported as a result of this weather event.”

Hargett said this was the first chance the department has had to use the snow plow attachment, and he said it made a definite difference in road conditions.

“We operated the snow plow Wednesday night and it worked very well for it to be the first time we had used it,” he said.

“It was visible that the roads where we actually used the plow had less ice on them on Thursday morning than the ones where we hadn’t used it, and those roads cleared up a lot faster.

“Now that we have seen exactly what this snow plow can do, we will be using it as soon as possible for any future winter weather events.”

Hargett said the RPD also tried to keep citizens informed about the weather and road conditions through social media.

“Any weather alerts that we received, any updates we got through EMA, or anything that we noticed when we were out on the roads, we tried to pass that information along through social media outlets,” Hargett said.

“We encourage citizens to keep up with the police department in situations like this and we’ll do the best we can to keep everyone informed.”

Grissom said looking back on the event, he felt it went as smoothly as possible thanks to everyone working together.

“We all pulled together as a team, and I appreciate all the department heads and employees who worked extra hours to make sure that our citizens remained safe during this past week of winter weather,” Grissom said.

“With everyone communicating and going in the same direction, we were able to get the streets cleared as soon as possible and had minimal accidents and problems.”