KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If you think the roads are bad now, driving could get even more difficult in short order. FOX 4 News has learned that the state of Missouri is feeling the effects of a national salt shortage.
The supply of salt that keeps our roads safe is getting to a point that one Missouri Department of Transportation employee, who asked not to be identified, described as “dangerously low.”
After receiving the anonymous phone call, we paid a visit to MoDOT’s salt barn in Kansas City. That’s the place that stores the majority of salt used on highways in the metro. So how low are the salt levels?
“We’d like to have more than now, that’s for sure,” maintenance supervisor Corey Hansen said.
Hansen showed us the barn, which was mostly empty. He said the 2,000 tons he has left are about half of where he wants to be.
“We’ve got 7,000 tons on order, but it’s going to be a couple of weeks before we can get it because there’s a national shortage going on right now with all the weather that’s been going on,” he said.
A national shortage caused by high demand for salt in the northeast to battle snow storms there. The salt supply is so low all over Missouri that the salt barn we visited had to share some of its already skimpy supply with the eastern part of the state, including Concordia and St. Louis.
“It was full when we started this year,” Hansen said.
To make the remaining salt last, MoDOT workers are mixing every bucket of salt with two buckets of sand. Sand provides traction, but it’s not usually used on heavily traveled stretches of road, like highways, because it doesn’t melt the snow. Hansen said he’s confident MoDOT can keep roads safe.
“Salt is not the only thing we’ve got in our tool box. We’ve got calcium chloride. We’ve got salt brine,” Hansen said.
FOX 4 also spoke with the Kansas Department of Transportation, which is also feeling the shortage. It says it’s okay for this storm, but if fresh salt doesn’t arrive in the next week or two, it’s going to get ugly.
