North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein declares new state of emergency as NCDOT preps for snow Friday night

Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan, The News & Observer on Jan 29, 2026

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RALEIGH, N.C. — With snow expected in North Carolina starting Friday night, Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency, the second one he’s issued in two weeks for a winter storm.

Unlike the emergency last weekend, this storm may blanket the state in snow rather than ice.

“That’s a good thing,” Stein said, “but it’s still going to have real impact on our lives.”

Stein said the N.C. Department of Transportation will be preparing for the snow on Friday, applying “salt and sand to deal with it, and if you can stay off the roads you’re going to make their jobs a whole lot easier, a whole lot safer, and you will be safe as well. So we really encourage folks to stay home, starting Friday night.”

The governor visited NCDOT’s “Brine Mountain” area off Westgate Road in Raleigh, where tons of rock salt are stored to be used in brine treatment on roads.

How NCDOT makes brine to treat roads

“We’ll use pure rock salt in our mix as a brine, and then we’ll be coming back with either salt or a salt-sand mix, depending on what kind of precipitation (falls),” Doug McNeal, the division maintenance engineer, told Stein.

The salt is shipped in by multiple suppliers, including from the Great Lakes and South America. Some of it comes up the Mississippi River in barges, McNeal said. It is measured in tons, and the storage facility Stein visited holds 2,000 tons of rock salt.

For the winter storm coming Friday night, “it’s going to be a long-duration event.” McNeal said, and for NCDOT employees, “it’s pretty much all hands on deck.”

Some NCDOT employees have worked 90-100 hours over the past week. McNeal told The News & Observer that overtime pay depends on the employees’ positions. Engineers get comp time, and workers in the field are paid hourly up to 40 hours, comp time up to 50 hours, and overtime of time-and-a-half over 50 hours a week.

McNeal said the state uses contractors — 145 contract trucks to supplement the 135 NCDOT plow trucks — to prepare for winter storms. Decisions are made about 30 hours before trucks deploy from multiple sites.