PennDOT crews headed to work ahead of an impending snow storm to make sure roads are as safe as they can be for commuters. A crucial part of the operation is actually indoors.

At PennDOT’s headquarters in Susquehanna Township, Dauphin County, employees keep their eyes on a wall of monitors with feeds from 81 strategically placed cameras, along the busiest highways in Central Pennsylvania.

“If there’s a traffic tie-up, we can view it here,” said Michael Crochunis, a PennDOT spokesman. “You can see, you know, was it an incident, or something that we need to do to treat the roads, or is there something we can do to expedite the clean-up of that accident?”

The employees watching the monitors will be able to divert crews to areas where they’re needed the most.

At county shops across the region, PennDOT workers prepared by inspecting trucks, attaching plows to them and filling them up with salt. Others treated heavily traveled highways with a salt-brine solution.

“That allows us to have some salt on the road, and so with the initial impact of the storm, we’re out ahead of it,” Crochunis said.

One thing’s for sure, whether they’re indoors or outdoors, PennDOT workers will be busy.

“We’ll be working around the clock, until this blows out of here and we have it all cleaned up,” Crochunis said.

You can monitor road conditions from PennDOT’s traffic cameras at its 511PA website.