MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A bright sunny sky left in the wake of winter storm Jonas was a welcomed sight for Monongalia County emergency officials and public safety agencies.
While snow tapered off Saturday afternoon and evening, the steady 24-hour dumping from Jonas immobilized much of the state including north central West Virginia.
“People knew to stay off the roadways. It minimized our call volume. We were able to actually focus on missions or problems we had that were life threatening or priority during the storm system,” recapped MECCA 911 Director Mike Wolfe.
By Sunday morning, the Monongalia County Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency had worked 6 straight days coordinating storm response plans with school, police, road and government departments.
Wolfe said Sunday, the early morning report from the DOH was promising.
“They are bringing in dozer crews which will have to hit those roadways before they can send their trucks in. It will take a little bit of time, but they are out there doing that. Along with the public’s help of letting them out there to clear those roads without meeting cars on the roadways and hopefully with the help of mother nature, we should be seeing a great improvement over the next 24 – 48 hours.”
Monongalia County Schools made an early call to cancel classes Monday, January 25. The Monongalia County Courthouse and the Monongalia County Justice Center will not open Monday.
“We received a lot more snow in some areas than expected. That snow continued to linger as we went through yesterday into the afternoon. We’re currently registered, unofficially, as the second largest snow storm for Monongalia County,” Wolfe said following conference calls with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.
Existing records were for 29.7 inches of snow on Nov. 25, 1950 and 20.8 inches of snow on March 14, 1993.
“We have currently recorded and are awaiting official approval from the NWS of 21 inches for this storm and potentially another report of 30 inches,” Wolfe indicated.
Snowfall of an inch or more an hour made keeping roadways open at all close to impossible.
“Department of Highways along with our city crews are working to not only plow but widen primary and secondary routes trying to get that snow removed so cars are passable through there and get them back to two lane roadways,” according to Wolfe.
Sunday’s high temperature wasn’t expected out of the 20’s and a dip into the teens Sunday night was expected to freeze surfaces that had snow melt from clear, sunny skies.
The county emergency warming shelters in Blacksville, Granville and Cheat Lake were no longer on standby to receive residents Sunday.
There were no significant or lengthy power outages in the county due to Jonas.