LITTLE ROCK, Ark — While ARDOT focused on the interstates and highways, city departments began working Wednesday afternoon to prep their own streets and roads ahead of the night freeze.
Even though the bulk of the work can't really be done until that freezing rain starts to fall, city officials said they're ready.
"I think it's important to give them some piece of mind that we have a plan in place," Jon Honeywell, Little Rock Public Works Director, said.
From Little Rock to Searcy to everywhere in between, crews are gearing up for a night filled with salting and sanding.
Mark Lane, Engineer for the city of Searcy, said they have six trucks prepped.
"Once the freezing rain begins, we'll be out, spreading all over town," he said.
As soon as anything starts to fall, Lane's crew will begin by hitting the most traveled roads across Searcy.
"We have some hills in town that we try to take care of first, that along with the major intersections, anywhere there's a traffic signal," he said.
According to Honeywell, the city of Little Rock already has nine different salt spreader routes that they have identified over the years. These are areas that consist of major arterials and collector streets.
"What we try to do is clear the big streets, so you can get across the city before you start going into the smaller streets," he said.
Honeywell said they've split their crews up into day and night shifts. There will be nine trucks putting down the sand and salt mixture across overpasses, bridges, and known steep hills.
"We won't eliminate it, but we hope to make it a better scenario for being on the streets afterwards," he said.
Over in Cabot, the director of infrastructure, Joe Gunderman, said preparations have been happening all week to make sure their seven trucks are ready to go.
"We've got several vehicles equipped with sand, salt spreaders. We have plows on standby incase it gets worse," he said.
The city prioritizing the streets, according to Gunderman, just like their surrounding neighbors.
Every official encouraging Arkansans to please stay home.
"It's a whole lot easier, whole lot safer and it allows us to be able to do our job more efficiently," Gunderman said.
When it comes to those priority streets, they all said hospitals, emergency rooms, and any other first responder locations are at the top of that list.
Also, if you see any trucks laying out that sand and salt, please use caution around them.