If you have to drive in Columbus area, slow down and watch for black ice

Road conditions in Columbus and the immediate area are expected to worsen Wednesday night and into Thursday morning.

Local law enforcement officials, including Columbus police, are urging people to stay off the roads, if at all possible. But many of the local roads are open and people are driving throughout Columbus, Phenix City and the area.

But if you have to drive, Columbus Police Lt. Clyde Dent offers a few suggestions, none of it is what he would call “fool proof.”

“What you need to be doing is driving slow,” said Dent, who supervises the motor squad. “You should expect ice to be on bridges, low-lying areas and places that are shaded..”

One of the biggest dangers on the roadways is black ice, that ice blends into the pavement and can send cars into a spin — or worse.

If drivers hit a patch of black ice, the first thing to do is not panic and avoid overreacting, Dent said.

“Don’t hit the brakes because that is usually a waste of time,” he said. “Try and steer the vehicle toward the skid. But none that is fool proff and the best thing is not to be other there. And in some cases, if the vehicle spins, you are just going to be along for ride.”

Wednesday’s already treacherous road conditions were not expected to improve overnight, with a low of 20 degrees freezing any snow that melts.

Columbus Police Maj. Charles Kennedy said that means drivers can’t expect safe travels Thursday morning, as the streets could be even more hazardous.

“We’re expecting the weather to freeze again tonight, so we’re expecting the roads to ice over, and the driving conditions to get worse than they were this morning, since it won’t be snow; it will be ice. It will be like black ice,” he said.

Without a snow cover, that ice blends into the pavement, so it’s hard to see, and motorists should not think an absence of snow means a road is safe.

“They should not think it’s a pass to get out there and drive like they normally do,” Kennedy said. “They’ll still need to exercise a lot of caution. There will be black ice on the road. There will be spots on the road that are more treacherous than others just because of the location where it is. We’re just again going to ask people to evaluate it in the morning, and if not necessary, stay off the road.”

The temperature will shoot up during the day Thursday, when the high is expected to be 46 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

Another hard freeze is forecast for Thursday night, with a low of 24 degrees, but then a warming trend begins, with a low of 30 degrees Friday night, a high around 60 Saturday and a low of 36 that night, and then a high near 65 on Sunday.

This story was originally published January 17, 2018 at 1:25 PM with the headline "If you have to drive in Columbus area, slow down and watch for black ice."