Snow has blanketed North Carolina. The cold and gusty wind will be left behind by the exiting snowstorm.
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Preparing for the weekend
Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency, urging North Carolinians to prepare for accumulating snow, high winds, bitter cold and the possibility of power outages.
On Friday, Stein encouraged people to stay off the roads during the storm, which he warned could create "whiteout" conditions, making travel difficult.
Doug McNeil with the Department of Transportation said that crews already have shove operations in place that will start Friday night and will continue on a 24-hour basis. He also said that the NCDOT has already spread about 320,000 gallons of brines on the roads across central N.C. counties on Friday.
"The primary thing is to be able to restore traffic through the area and then into the communities on our main routes that allow emergency services, fire trucks, EMS, food deliveries to grocery stores to continue on," McNeil said. "We focus on the main infrastructure first and then work into the rest of the network."
Crews who have been brining and plowing the roads from last week's storm have a quick turnaround to get back into preparing for this weekend's storm conditions. Officials urge people that the best way to help out and support the hard-working crewmembers is to stay at home and let the trucks do their jobs.
Watch: How Raleigh is preparing communities for snow
The forecast is also calling for gusts strong enough to bring down limbs and trees alike in many areas. Duke Energy’s Jeff Brooks says men and materials are ready to go, ahead of this weekend’s snowstorm. Crews expect the winter weather to cause small to mid-sized outages all across the state.
“Not big clusters, you know, maybe a few 1000 people out in various places,” Brooks said.
Any wind stronger than 29 miles per hour means Duke Energy crews won’t be able to get up in bucket trucks to make repairs - potentially making any potential outages last longer.
Historic snow hits North Carolina's coast this past weekend
