Community Corner
County Under 'Declared State of Emergency'
This means that Douglas County may issue travel restrictions and other regulations during the emergency time period to help expedite the recovery from the snow/ice event.
Douglas County is under a declared State of Emergency, according to the county website, celebratedouglascounty.com. This means that the County may issue travel restrictions and other regulations during the emergency time period to help expedite the recovery from the snow/ice event.
The situation is critical. You need to understand this. This is not something to be trifled with.
Stay home! Do not get out on the roads unless you absolutely have to. All roads are dangerous. Chapel Hill Road is particularly in bad shape around Fowler Field. Highway 5 is very icy.
The Douglas County Department of Transportation will be working 24 hours a day through this emergency. However, temperatures on Wednesday are not expected to rise above freezing, so the ice and snow on the roadways will stay frozen. Temperatures will not get above freezing until Thursday afternoon.
We will have 10 – 15 mph winds overnight tonight into Wednesday. With temperatures already in the teens, the wind chill will be in the single digits. Even sand and salt on the roadways will not break up and melt hard frozen ice and snow, so the roads will continue to be dangerous until Thursday. Remember that black ice cannot be seen and is very dangerous!
Additional snow flurries/showers are expected until about midnight Tuesday night but little if any additional accumulation is predicted by the National Weather Service.
The Douglas County Courthouse and all external County services will be closed Wednesday. Douglas County E911, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, the Douglas County Fire/EMS, Douglas County Emergency Management, the Douglas County DOT, and Douglas County Communications will be at our posts 24 hours a day to aid our citizens through this time.
Do not call 911 unless you have an emergency. The E911 Center is handling thousands of calls and are dispatching the appropriate public safety agency to emergency situations. Due to the huge volume of calls, we are only able to respond to injury calls. If you have a fender bender, call a tow truck.
Do not leave an abandoned car in a traffic lane. If you feel you must abandon/leave your car, then get it off onto the shoulder of the road or into a nearby driveway or parking lot.
Douglas County Schools will be closed Wednesday.
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