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Baton Rouge schools, agencies to close Tuesday ahead of snow | Weather/Traffic

Baton Rouge-area agencies and schools are announcing closures ahead of freezing weather and snow expected early next week, as other state and local departments are preparing to handle icy roads and bridges.

The National Weather Service has predicted a 60% to 70% chance of snow on Tuesday.

East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards issued a parishwide Emergency Disaster Declaration on Friday.

The declaration enables East Baton Rouge Parish to implement emergency plans and request additional resources as needed in “order to supplement local efforts and capabilities to save lives and protect property,” the Mayor’s Office said in a news release.

City-parish offices will be closed on Tuesday, as will all state offices.

East Baton Rouge schools also will be closed on Tuesday, in addition to being closed for the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday, the school district said Friday.

“Out of an abundance of care and understanding for our families, we will not require remote learning during this time,” the school district said. “We understand that potential power outages and hazardous conditions may affect our ability to connect.

“And for some of our students, this weather may bring a first-time experience — snow!” the public school district said.

For a list of announced area school closings, click here.

LSU’s physical campus will be closed Tuesday, but classes will continue in a format to be determined by each instructor, the university said. Residence halls and dining halls will remain open, although the hours of operation may be adjusted.

Students enrolled in fully online programs should continue with their coursework as usual.

The Vet School will be communicate separately with its students and staff about operations, LSU said.

The University Laboratory School and the LSU Early Childhood Education Laboratory Preschool will also be closed Tuesday.

Southern University campuses in Baton Rouge will be closed on Tuesday as classes shift to remote operations.

Monitoring roads and bridges

“We want people to be prepared,” said Clay Rives, director of the Mayor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

“We’re hearing there will be freezing temperatures until next Friday once they start Monday,” Rives said.

It is helpful that Monday falls on the Martin Luther King holiday, he said.

“Hopefully, more people will be staying home, with school out and people not having to go into work,” Rives said.

“We’re asking people to be careful if they do need to get out,” he said.

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“We will work to maintain city-parish roads and bridges, and if the situations become unsafe, there may be some closures,” Rives said.

Rives urged residents to visit the parish site RedStickReady.com to get up-to-date information and safety tips.

The city-parish has a plan of action for ice and snow, in the same way it has one for flooding, said Fred Raiford, director of the city-parish department of public works, which works closely with the office of emergency preparedness.

On Friday, public works employees were prestaging barricades “mostly at locations with overpasses and bridges,” such as the Perkins Road and North Boulevard overpasses, Raiford said.

City-parish workers will be putting down salt on bridges and overpasses to melt ice, he said.

“You have to time it right,” Raiford said. “A heavy rain will wash the salt off.”

“We’re going to take every step to keep people safe in this major winter event.

“The biggest issue we can emphasize is, if you don’t have to be on the road, don’t,” Raiford said.

State Department of Transportation and Development crews will be turning to a salt storage facility on Tom Drive in Baton Rouge that holds a million pounds of salt to keep state bridges deiced, communications director Rodney Mallett said.

“We monitor the bridges. We can’t salt every state road, so we look at the bridges,” Mallett said.

Roads rarely ice over, because of the way the ground retains heat in Louisiana, he said.

“Once the weather reaches the point where we can start using salt on the bridges, we will do that, day and night, in 12-hour shifts,” Mallett said.

However, the Atchafalaya Bridge, which is 18 miles long with two lanes in each direction, is a different beast, he said.

“Its hard to keep open and may have to be closed,” Mallett said.

The DOTD crews will try to keep bridges open, but will be watching for “impassable conditions, it doesn’t matter whether it’s snow, sleet or ice” that call for a bridge to be closed, Mallett said.

“It’s not easy to predict, so we try to stay ready,” he said.

Swiss

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