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Area road crews prepare for dual-threat winter storm

Gov. Josh Stein has declared a state of emergency ahead of winter weather that’s expected Wednesday afternoon and encouraged officials to prepare for low temperatures.

Crews at area salt yards like the one near High Point began brining the interstates Monday.

The salt and water solution will help when the snow falls, says Derek Dixon, a state Department of Transportation maintenance engineer for the Guilford-Alamance County region. 

But this storm comes with a dual threat. The National Weather Service predicts a wintry mix, which could mean ice on top of the snow. Dixon says that combination creates a dangerous situation for drivers.

"The snow gets packed on top of the trees. Ice will get on top of that, and then we have issues with trees falling, and then it really makes the roads a lot worse, travel-wise," he says.

The region had gone a few years without a major snowstorm but this is the third time this season crews have needed to prepare for winter weather.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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