Winter blast hits metro Detroit; the impact continues
(WJBK) - The snowfall seemed unrelenting and the cold was unforgiving. Welcome to winter.
Hundreds of schools and even entire districts are closed Thursday after Wednesday's snowfall. Expect a slow and possibly slippery commute Thursday morning. Check a live traffic map before you leave the house at www.fox2detroit.com/traffic, and get a check of the latest accident reports here.
The Wednesday evening commute was sloppy as well. By 8 p.m., Michigan State Police tallied roughly 45 crashes. City and county roadcrews are in overdrive making streets more passable.
Seventy trucks were out plowing and salting roads Wednesday night in Oakland County, more than 100 in Wayne County, 45 in Macomb County and Detroit had 50 trucks clearing the roads.
"We've got 111 trucks on the road," said Bill Bantom, Wayne County Road Maintenance. "Because of the amount of snow we've received so far, we've broken them up into two man plow groups.
"Right now we are not applying a lot of salt, we are actually plowing the salt to be effective."
Wednesday's storm made for more work after work as people shoveled driveways - or they wised up and paid some to do it.
Wednesday's snowfall left most of southeast Michigan with 6 to 10 inches. According to the National Weather Service, Wixom has about 7.3 inches with Ann Arbor at 6 inches, Livonia 5.7 and Garden City 4.6.
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