By HEATH HARRISON and MARK SHAFFER

More snow forecast for Friday

Much of the Tri-State remained shut down as of Tuesday and the process of digging out from Winter Storm Blair continued.

The storm moved into the region on Sunday afternoon, coming in three rounds, first snow, then freezing rain, then more snow on Monday.

Once it had passed, the region was buried under several inches of snow, as well as a coat of ice, making roads dangerous and largely unpassable on Monday.

At one point, Lawrence County was under a Level 3 snow alert from the county sheriff’s office, barring all but emergency vehicles from the dangerous roadways.

By Tuesday, that had been dropped back to Level 1, but schools throughout the county remained closed into Wednesday. And officials across the Tri-State advised the clean up would take time, as the cold temperatures hindered the effectiveness of road salt on highways.

In Ironton, main streets had been mostly plowed and crews were beginning to work on side streets, but the frigid temperatures made that a slow process throughout the region.

“We’re getting there, but we’re not where I’d like to be,” Mayor Sam Cramblit II said. He noted that the accumulation was the most he had seen in his lifetime.

“We had a lot of snow and ice fall in a short period of time,” he said. “And there’s still a lot to be done.”

The Ironton City Center would be closed again on Wednesday, he said, as it had been all week, while Ironton Municipal Court was closed and those with business before the court were notified that their cases were continued.

Cramblit said the city center was closed, mainly as they did not want to encourage any unnecessary travel.

The mayor advised that the city fire department was open as warming center this week for those lacking heating.

Two of the city’s longtime businesses, Central Hardware and Iron City Hardware, were among the few open on Monday, with fresh stocks of winter supplies, as well as sleds, announced at both.

Jim Hacker said Iron City Hardware makes it a point to open during snow storms because people need things.

“We always say ‘Don’t call in, crawl in,” he said. “We make it a point because people need things, pipes bust or whatever, we want to be here for them. And of course, they need the three S’s — salt, shovel and sleds.”

Before the snow hit on Sunday, the store was busy with people buying propane heaters, propane tanks and other items in case the electric went out.

“We are pretty well sold out of generators and kerosene heaters,” Hacker said. “We got another storm coming in, so we have two trucks coming in (Wednesday).”

And the staff will be busy unloading the trucks because the hardware store’s forklift quit working.

“So, we are going to be unloading manually,” Hacker said.

Many Ironton residents received help from a celebrated source on Monday, with members of the Ironton High School Fighting Tigers football team, fresh off their December state championship win, going through neighborhoods and shoveling sidewalks and driveways.

The team said in a post on Facebook that they were doing so as a thank you to the community for their support.

The region dodged a major concern that came with the storm, with few power outages in Lawrence and Boyd County, Kentucky reported.

In Ashland, Kentucky, the city’s main streets were plowed, but work was still taking place on side streets on Tuesday. Essential businesses, such as gas stations, grocery stores were open, along with many restaurants.

Downtown, the trees in Central Park were covered in snow, and the park, while picturesque, was absent its usual foot traffic of walkers and joggers.

In South Point, Mayor Jeff Gaskin said the village was “in good shape.”

He said there had been no outages and the major roads had been plowed.

“We’ve taken care of our main streets and hills,” he said, noting it was possible to get around the village.

Conditions had improved enough that Tuesday night’s meeting of village council took place as scheduled. The prior day, neighboring Chesapeake had to reschedule their Monday meeting of council for next week.

In Coal Grove, Mayor Andy Holmes said the village had “the best streets in Lawrence County.”

He said crews had an early start putting salt down and worked to plow the first round of snow.

He said the roads were “taken care of” and now village workers were working to help those in need of additional support.

He said they were now preparing for the next round of snow, which is forecast for Friday night. According to the National Weather Service, of press time, up to three inches of additional accumulation are expected.

Cramblit, Holmes and Gaskin said they had experienced no power outages or infrastructure issues in their municipalities.