Roads around town are icing over now that temperatures are falling below freezing again. Highs in Riverhead today reached 40 degrees according to local weather station data, melting snow along area roadways. Wet roads are getting icy as temperatures plummet.
Icy conditions have been reported on Edwards Avenue and Peconic Bay Boulevard and an SUV overturned at about 6:15 on Doctors Path near the apartment complex. No one was injured in the crash.
The National Weather Service issued a special weather statement at 6:11 p.m. warning motorists about the likelihood of black ice on area roadways.
Riverhead highway crews are going out now to begin applying a mixture of salt and sand on the town’s main roads, Highway Superintendent George Woodson said this evening.
Woodson said crews will not be treating side roads tonight in an effort to conserve salt supplies, which he said are dwindling.
“We’ve been waiting on salt deliveries, all the East End departments are,” he said. “Deliveries out here have been hard to come by and with demand so high, it’s worse than usual this year,” Woodson said.
He said he’s hoping a long-awaited salt delivery will arrive tomorrow.
Woodson said the highway superintendents association is seeking to have a salt storage facility built on the East End, to alleviate demand on suppliers from Staten Island and New Jersey during peak times.
Riverhead town crews were out until about 2 a.m. this morning, then went out again at about 8:30 a.m. and worked until 2 this afternoon, Woodson said.
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