The City of Butler’s plow drivers were active for 22 hours straight during the weekend of Saturday, Dec. 13, amid a winter storm that prompted widespread school closures, significant power outages in the southern portion of the county and varying strategies to keep the roads passable.

As snow fell primarily from Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon in Butler County, road crews worked to clear the way. Despite the effort, school districts across Butler County closed on Monday due to the road conditions.

“It’s a pretty quick start to the winter season this year,” Troy Douthett, the city’s director of streets and public improvements, said.

He reported only one of the city’s five plow trucks had been active all weekend without any issues. One truck experienced problems overheating and the others have been active, but required fixing before going out and while out on the roads, he said.

Each driver has their own section of the city they’re assigned to keep clear, Douthett said. In most cases over the weekend, drivers have had to replow their entire route after finishing due to quick snow accumulation.

“Everybody is in bed and the street department is out in the cold clearing the streets,” Douthett said.

His department had to request two additional salt deliveries of 5 tons each over the weekend and received only one of them.

Salt becomes less effective when the temperature drops below 25 degrees, according to PennDOT community relations coordinator Tina Gibbs. She said PennDOT crews used more anti-skid material over the weekend as a result. The type of treatment can also depend on temperature, precipitation type and traffic volume.

“Our goal is to keep the roads passable,” she said. “During an active snowfall, they will not (be) completely free of ice and snow.”

PennDOT pretreats roads with salt and salt-brine to prevent ice from freezing to the pavement. It has 82 operators and 45 plow trucks in its Butler County fleet, Gibbs said. Crews had been out on shifts starting early Saturday morning and will continue until roads are clear.

PennDOT is responsible for around 1,600 miles of state roads in the county and some routes can take up to four hours to plow.

“Routes are assigned, but during a storm, crews may plow and salt major highways first before moving to the less-traveled rural state roads,” Gibbs said.

PennDOT recommends drivers allow extra travel time and leave more space between vehicles.

According to First Energy Corporation, more than 4,700 homes in Butler County were without power at 7:15 a.m. Monday morning.

“We had an issue with a high-voltage line that came down in a remote area, impacting service to about 9,000 customers,” said Lauren Siburkis, a senior representative of First Energy. “We restored power to more than half of the affected customers within an hour, and all remaining customers were back up and running by 9 a.m.”

Adams Township experienced the most outages in the county Monday morning with 3,157 homes without power.

According to Callery Volunteer Fire Company, a significant power issue was reported overnight affecting the areas surrounding Callery and Adams Township.

Mars was experiencing 921 outages as of 7:15 a.m., Valencia was experiencing 493 outages and Forward Township was experiencing 118 outages, according to First Energy.

Evans City, Seven Fields, Butler; and Middlesex, Connoquenessing and Butler townships were also experiencing fewer than 20 outages.

By early Monday evening, First Energy reported no outages in the county.

Adams Area Fire District said in a Facebook post the outage was centered along the Three Degree Road and Route 228 corridor.

The fire company said some homes may have had limited power operating between 60 and 70 volts, but the average home operates on 120 volts.

The Butler, Freeport, Moniteau, Seneca Valley and Slippery Rock school districts were closed Monday. Karns City, Knoch and Mars had remote learning days.

Knoch had a remote instruction day Monday after it had called for a two-hour delay the night before. The school district, which encompasses about 95 square miles, has two employees at W.L. Roenigk, the district’s transportation company, who help superintendent David Foley decide if buses can safely transport students.

“Although sometimes the main roads are clearer, there are back roads that seem to pose challenges for our buses to get to,” Foley said.

Foley said school buildings had power Monday morning and there were only a few houses in the district that may have experienced outages.

Foley issued a two-hour delay Sunday evening to help parents prepare for increased travel times in the morning and allow a chance for the weather to clear.

When a remote learning day may be needed, Foley begins to analyze the roads around 3:45 a.m. to notify drivers and students by 5:30 a.m.

“We made the decision based on our need to keep students safe,” Foley said.

The conditions, however, didn’t keep Dave Jackson, a military veteran, off the road.

The man who is known to occasionally run holding a United States flag ran through the snow on South Duffy Road in Butler Township on Monday.