OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Oklahoma street crews have been preparing for the multiple rounds of winter weather Oklahoma will experience this week.
News 4 got in the passenger seat in one of the city’s spray trucks, while crews test out their new beet-juice brine mixture, while the ice and snow is already on the ground.
The mixture drivers will see on the back of the trucks is the regular salt-water mixture often used, but with 10% of added beet juice. Crews said the beet juice can cut through thick pieces of ice, because it can melt snow and ice in zero to -10 degrees.
“It makes what we laid down last longer than if we just put salt brine out by itself. It helps keep the product basically on the ground longer and work faster and hotter, if you will, as it melts quicker,” said Mike Love Jr., the Public Works Emergency Operator for OKC. “Salt will not work if the temperatures aren’t high enough. It’ll just sit on [ice] until the temperatures come up. And if it’s in a shaded spot, it’ll just sit there. Beet juice doesn’t need sunlight to work. So, when we add it with our brine like we have right now, it’s supposed to be able to cut through this pack.”
On Sunday, crews pre-treated the roads with the mixture. They said after the ice came down Monday morning, the mixture helped melt the ice and kept it from sticking to the surface.
Crews are only testing the beet juice brine as a treatment on select roads. The rest of the roads will be treated with the salt-water mixture. Love Jr. said if the city decides it likes the mixture, it will only use beet juice as a preventative, unless we hit 20-degrees or below.
Although the juice comes from beets, the mixture is not red or pink, but brown. Crews said it will not stain cars.
“We sprayed this twice on our test bridges for the last two storms we’ve had. And it comes out of a brown instead of a pink, and it dries to a brown or off white. It does not mess with anybody’s car,” said Love Jr.