News | Hundreds Are Ready To Treat The Icy Roads As Time Moves Tonight

ARLINGTON "About 800 highway workers are ready to begin processing in North Texas roads at midnight tonight as the region braces for the cold Tuesday of the week Super Bowl.

The Texas Department of Transportation is set to 82 workers in other parts of Texas to help the 447 workers who are already here, asking them to sleep in the beds set up offices in TxDOT 's in the Dallas area. These additional workers were en route Monday night, carrying between 43 and 70 additional pieces of equipment.

In addition, the North Texas Tollway Authority officials have mobilized all the maintenance staff of about 250 for managing toll roads area.

Officials said the Super Bowl festivities begin in earnest Tuesday as the international news media descended on the Cowboys stadium in Arlington for hours and hours of interviews with the players in the round by the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers.

Brian Barth, assistant director of TxDOT's district 'Tarrant said that the strength of additional work remains in bed until Wednesday and may be sent to East Texas, if conditions warrant. But because the snow is again possible in the week, workers said they were willing to spend the rest of the week Super Bowl in North Texas.

"They have said that will end the week here in North Texas, where there is another need them," said Barth.

Super Bowl XLV in Arlington Sunday is expected to attract 150,000 to 200,000 fans in North Texas, and Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said he and representatives of all local transportation agencies have been working for four years on a plan to keep the area around the traffic snarl-prone famous "even under the worst conditions.

Barth said that if the storm expected Tuesday leaves the ice roads severely, he won 't be something your department or NTTAA can do to keep traffic moving. But the conditions Aren should be so bad, "he said." I think it's really the worst case scenario where you can find 3 inches of ice on the streets "and not being able to do much."

But so far, Barth said, the forecasts indicate that the ice will be much less severe.

Morris said that the forecast called for 12 hours of rain, with temperatures above zero for a "significant amount" of that period. "Then it will be very cold," he said, "and we will be followed."

However, both Barth and JC Wood, director of maintenance for NTTAA said additional teams will be available to handle the roads.

Morris said the stakes are high. "We 're very sensitive to climate," he said. "We're aware of something that concerns the decision of the NFL s' if you want to come back here."

Morris and transport officials refused to put a dollar figure on the extra precautions, but Morris said a full report would be made after the Super Bowl.

"This is our first Super Bowl, and we want them again," he said. "We wanted to do everything possible at the level of A-plus. This probably means that we spent a few points. But we wanted to make sure."

Morris said that by next month, the same team that has contributed to this plan will work the Super Bowl bid for the Super Bowl L.

If temperatures drop below freezing at night, "he said, Dallas Area Rapid Transit to run trains during the night" with closed doors "to keep its main points were frozen.