Clayton County is hedging its bet against this weekend’s winter storm with a $60,000 brine-making machine.
The county purchased the salt-maker after last year’s ice storm and is believed to be one of the few counties in metro Atlanta with such a machine, said Landry Merkison, Clayton’s fire chief and emergency management director.
The stationary machine is at the county’s salt barn and will be used, should the weather call for it, to produce brine for the roads and bridges. In addition to the brine machine, a 5,000-gallon tractor-trailer was purchased to hold the brine. A smaller vehicle normally used to fight grass fires has been converted to lay down brine in areas where fire and police vehicles are likely to travel. Four other vehicles have been converted to salt trucks to treat key passages such as the ramps and roads leading to and from Southern Regional Medical Center, Merkison said.
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