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With freezing temperatures ahead, white flag shelters are ready to continue making sure people have a safe place to go at night.

Pastor Vance Haywood helps run the emergency shelters and said it really is a matter of life or death.

"There's a lot of mixed emotions that come with it. but just talking with the folks that we're working with and knowing that they're going to have a safe place to be, that they'll be alive tomorrow to be able to work with our case managers to help find, the next steps, that is a really great feeling," he said.

Emergency shelters opened when the temperatures dip to 35 degrees or below overnight, normally serving just under 100 people, and opened their doors to roughly 225 on these white flag nights.

Pastor Haywood said they've had to open this season much more than in years past.

"Right now we've already broken the record for what we've seen over the last five years, with the number of white flag nights that we've already declared," he said. "And with this continued cold snap, it looks like we're going to continue breaking records for a little while"

They can always use donations - but because they've had to open so much this year - they need them now more than normal.

In addition to donations, Haywood said they're always looking for people to donate time as well - as they could use more volunteers - but it helps people better understand the issue of homelessness in our community as well.

Across the Triangle on Friday, highways and side streets were dusted with snow; over 1,000 days in the making creating tough conditions out on the roads.

North Carolina Department of Transportation crews based in Raleigh were out in full force on Saturday covering the entire area.

"It was a good night. Everything went smoothly. We had a few things we had to adjust to. We had a couple of routes closed and we had to adjust," NCDOT Engineer Doug McNeal said. "We were servicing them from we have certain salt, salt stockpile areas and we had a few accidents. We had to change and pull some resources from different counties into sort of some sections."

One of those accidents was a multi-car chain reaction crash from slippery conditions on Interstate 87 near Knightdale.

By Sunday, the snow was cleared out however crews had to focus on the possibility of black ice.

"We're certainly getting into some freezing temperatures. So we need to expect black ice and black ice can be anywhere," McNeal said. 'We generally you see, it in areas that have been shaded and haven't seen the sunlight. And then they thaw and then refreeze, but they can be anywhere."

There were multiple crashes Saturday morning after snow, freezing rain and sleet moved through central NC. This includes:

• A truck overturned on I-87 South near Wendell, blocking two lanes.

• A pickup truck went off the on-ramp from I-540 westbound to NC 54. It rammed into the control box of the traffic signal at the intersection.

• There was a reported two-vehicle crash on I-40 at South Saunders Street.

NCDOT urges people to stay off the roads if possible.

A truck overturned on I-87 South near Wendell, blocking two lanes.

RDU officially got less than an inch of snow. Areas closer to the Virginia border saw the highest amount of snow around 3 to 4 inches.

ABC11 viewers sent in some pictures across the Triangle and beyond:

Fuquay Varina

Durham at Northgate Park

Henderson

Boydton, Virginia