Why weren't Oklahoma highways pre-treated before Monday's ice?

Oklahoma highways experienced significant disruptions Monday morning due to a wintry mix, with ODOT acknowledging it did not pre-treat roads before the weather hit.

KOCO By Alyse Jones

Dec 1, 2025

Oklahoma highways were thrown into chaos Monday morning as a wintry mix led to flipped cars, pileups and traffic backed up for miles, with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation admitting it they did not pre-treat the roads before the weather hit.

The scene was marked by crashes covering Oklahoma highways, with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol responding to 350 car crashes and two dozen stranded drivers statewide. EMSA reported responding to more than 100 of those crashes, mostly on state highways.

"The highways and these junctions, I-40 to I-35, the I-35 to I-40 junction," said Donald Wood, field operation supervisor at EMSA. "To my knowledge, I don't know if they were pretreated, but we did see salt and sand trucks that were out there, and OHP did a really good job about directing them to where they needed to be."

ODOT informed KOCO that they treated the roads Monday morning but not before the weather hit "due to forecasts trending lighter to no precipitation in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metros."

View the full article: KOCO.com