COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)– The Ohio Department of Transportation is preparing to battle another round of wintry weather this week.

And with all the snow and ice expected to hit the roads, they have got more than 200 crews working around the clock to handle it.

“The crews here in Central Ohio, have driven almost 2,000,000 lane miles, just for ice and snow removal. Which is the equivalent of driving around 270, more than 23,000 times,” said Brooke Ebersole, PIO for ODOT Columbus.

Ebersole says just one of their truck routes can take anywhere from an hour and a half, to two hours.

It’s why they’re staffed in 12-hour shifts, in order to keep roadways, ramps and bridges clear throughout the day.

With the weather switching from snow to sleet and freezing rain Monday evening, Ebersole said ice is ODOT’s biggest challenge.

“Ice really creates a challenge for a couple reasons,” she said. “One of those being, if ice comes down and snow comes down over top of it, we not only have to come through and plow that snow off, we have to come back around, hope the snow hasn’t covered up too much of the ice again that we can still treat with those deicing tools we have in our tool belt.”

As far as what to expect during the early commute, Ebersole is asking people only travel out if absolutely necessary.

“The best word to describe what your Tuesday morning commute is going to be like is messy,” she said. “If you can change your plans, stay home a little longer, take yourself off the road for a couple more hours than you originally would have been out, by all means, do so because we are fighting significant snow accumulation as well as ice.” 

However, to do their jobs properly, ODOT is asking drivers to give them plenty of space and patience.

Because these trucks can hold at least twelve tons of salt, and their weight is only multiplied by the plow blade sitting on front of it.

“That plow blade itself without the truck, weighs about 2,000 pounds and it’s about 12 feet wide, so it’s much heavier and much wider than the vehicle you’re operating,” said Ebersole.