COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — The winter driving season appears to be off to a good start in North Idaho.
After roughly an inch of snow fell overnight in the Coeur d'Alene area on Wednesday, authorities said they responded to minimal amounts of slide-offs and crashes during the morning commute.
Along Interstate 90, the morning remained "pretty calm," according to Trooper Michael Archer with Idaho State Police. Archer said that troopers first responded to slide-offs around 4:30 a.m., but the incidents and accompanying damage were fairly minimal. Improving road conditions throughout the morning aided drivers and troopers alike, Archer said.
Snow didn't appear to significantly impact county roads either, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office reported. Lieutenant Ryan Higgins, a department spokesman, told KREM that deputies responded to some slide-offs in outlying areas of the county but "nothing too serious."
The Idaho Transportation Department credited preparation and its plow drivers with making the commute bearable.
"As far as the storm went, it was an easy, kind of 'Get back in the rhythm' this morning," said Megan Sausser, an ITD spokeswoman. "This storm was nice to us in the sense that it wasn't super cold."
Sausser described the agency's operations as fairly routine before and after the storm. After looking at the forecast, crews applied salt brine to roads in anticipation of snow.
"If we can prevent ice from every forming, that's our goal. Because it's way easier to prevent ice from forming than it is to get rid of it once it's there," said Sausser.
Salt brine was effective due to temperatures not dipping below 16 degrees, she added.
Sausser also said that the weather allowed drivers and ITD staff to ease back into winter driving conditions.
"We notice it takes a couple of storms for drivers to get back into the winter driving mindset," she said. "We're always happy when there's an easy start back into winter. Because our own operators, they haven't been in plows for a year, so they have to get used to how those run again."
ITD reminds drivers to check road conditions at 511.idaho.gov before departing during the winter.