PIKEVILLE — With Punxsutawney Phil’s Monday morning forecast of six more weeks of winter, members of Highway District 12 met to discuss the problems created by the last week’s ice storm.

Residents of Highway District 12’s seven counties include Lawrence, Johnson, Martin, and northern Floyd County. This morning these residents awoke to freezing rain that switched over to snow showers.

“Our crews have not recovered from last week yet,” said Darold Slone, project delivery and preservation branch manager for the district’s northern counties. “We had more than 6,000 trees down in Johnson County alone. At least 21 roads are still blocked in places by trees that have to be cut with chain saws and moved off the pavement.”

Slone, along with project delivery and preservation branch manager for the district’s southern counties, Sam Hale, conducted a strategy meeting last Friday to ensure work continues on getting trees out of roadways and, at the same time, to provide adequate rest for workers because of the prediction of Monday morning’s snowfall.

Pike County Schools released students at 12:30 p.m. Monday due to weather conditions.

“We have men who do not have electricity and water at home. Yet they are out here making our roads safe for the rest of us. It’s not practical to go out for lunch, even though they take a lunch break,” Hale observed. “If they have no power or water at home, they can’t very well pack their lunch, so they are living on chips and crackers from the vending mach-ines. We just had to work out a plan to keep them rested and healthy so that we can keep on keeping on in our job of clearing the roads and making them safe for motorists.”

AccuWeather.com reports snow showers will continue this morning accumulating a coating to up to an inch of snow.

Information officer for Highway District 12 Sara George said snow fighters are out in all seven counties: Lawrence, Johnson, Martin, Floyd, Knott, Pike, and Letcher.

“If the snow stops, we can actually get the roads completely cleared, except where there are trees still down, but right now we are plowing and the snow is covering it right back up.”

“We have mobilized construction workers as well as our maintenance specialists,” Hale said. “Part of the Transportation Cabinet re-organization last year in-volved merging maintenance and construction under one supervisory um-brella. The long-term goal is to train each of these highly skilled individuals in both areas. I’d say the construction folks are getting baptized, not by fire, but by snow and ice.”

Ky. Gov. Steve Beshear is calling it the biggest natural disaster to hit Ken-tucky. Thousands of National Guardsmen have arrived to help clean up debris and check on area residents.

As of 1 p.m. Monday, George reported road conditions in the following counties:

Floyd Co. (Allen) – pavement in good condition, wet roads, spot treating on mountains, all roads are open from the ice storm last week.

Floyd Co. (Minnie) - plowing and treating, snowing/ roads are partially covered, all roads are open from the ice storm last week

Johnson Co. - roads wet, spot treating especially on mountains, roads that remain closed due to tree falls during last week’s ice storm are Ky. routes 302, 1428, 469, 1559, 580, 1614, 581, 1624, 689, 1750, 825, 2039, 993, 2381, 1092, 3214, 1100, 3224, 1145, 3387 and 1409.

Knott County - plowing and treating.

Lawrence County - spot treating, pavement in good condition.

Martin County - spot treating, pavement in good condition.

Letcher County - spot treating, pavement in good condition.

Pike County (Shelby, Canada, Phelps) - pavement in good condition, spot treating, especially in higher elevations

The groundhog looking for a shadow on Feb. 2 is a German tradition. A shadow means six more weeks of winter. If no shadow is cast, spring will come early according to the tradition.

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club reports Phil has seen his shadow 97 times since 1887.