Wet snow causing dangerous road conditions in Harlan County

HARLAN COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) - Harlan County saw a mix of rain, snow, sleet and ice Sunday afternoon before it converted to a wet snow around 8 p.m.

County and state road crews spent all day Monday working to clear the roads.

”The main roads are looking a lot better, 421 and 119 are in pretty good condition now, the state has done a wonderful job on those,” Dan Mosley, Judge Executive said.

County officials did have a few reports of stuck cars, accidents and power outages, but less than the normal number they see during a wet snow.

”We had a couple of minor accidents but nothing significant there have been a couple of power outages but when you have a heavy wet snow you always worry about a lot of those and we haven’t seen that with this one,” Judge Mosley said.

Road crews are getting to secondary roads but there are 1,500 in Harlan County to tend to. Officials are warning to stay off secondary roads until Tuesday afternoon if possible to give road crews time to work on them.

”With all that rain and sleet and stuff that we had yesterday, the roads were wet so it formed a layer of ice, so you hear that crunching when you’re driving that takes extra time and extra attention to treat that so they’re having to go over these things repeatedly,” Judge Mosley said.

Officials are asking for people to be patient and stay home if possible, but expect road conditions to be much safer Tuesday afternoon.

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