Roads are treacherous as crews plow snow across Ocean County, NJ

The snow is presenting some challenges in Ocean County on Friday morning for plow crews and any commuters out there in this fast moving storm.

Ocean County Roads Supervisor Scott Waters tells Townsquare Media News that they've been out there plowing the county roads since midnight and things were going pretty smooth until about 4:00 am when the snow started coming down quicker and more intense.

"It's been probably snowing since then maybe an inch and a half to two inches per hour so right now the roads are not that good," Waters said. "As we plow, by the time we get to the end, there could be an inch and a half behind us so we're just continuing to keep pushing snow until it lets up a little bit to where we could get a better edge on it."

Even as things eventually slow down with snowfall, one of his chief concerns is commuters out there on the roads.

"The only thing that we'l see probably is but the time this starts to lighten up, people will be out on the road driving, which always hinders our operations," Waters said. "If it was a little bit earlier, we could have everything plowed off and some material down before the commuters started. That's usually the only problem we get into is traffic itself."

If you can, stay home, but if you do have to go out, especially this morning, be mindful of all the plows out there doing their jobs.

"As normal, if you come up on any plows in their operations, just be careful because they could be slowing down, stopping, turning with the plow down and these trucks are loaded with several tons of salt, it's a little bit harder for them to maneuver with that, so just be mindful of that," Waters said. "If you're coming down a road and the road isn't cleaned from gutter to gutter, we're coming back because our operations aren't done until the roads are cleaned from gutter to gutter. A lot of times, we'll make a couple passes just to open the road up but we'll leave that gutter, so if you see that in the gutter, we'll be back to take care of it."

The crews are out there moving across various Ocean County roads on Friday morning.

"We just do county roads, there typically larger roads and longer roads, so the 500 series roads like 571 and 539," Waters said. "The small, residential roads are usually handled by the township."