Snow dump leaves behind dangerous cold, slick roads, closed schools | LIVE UPDATES

On Tuesday night, Wake County parents were busy preparing for another school cancellation on Wednesday with the possibility of even more later this week. Many of them were also picking up last-minute supplies such as sleds, shovels, and Ice Melt ahead of the storm expected to hit the area Wednesday morning.

"It is a lot of canceled school, so it's definitely challenging," said Stephanie Pyne, whose son is a second-grader at Conn Elementary in Raleigh.

Pyne said it's been an interesting winter navigating several storms -- the most active winter season in the Triangle in several years.

With children out of school and potential power outages, parents are scrambling to get as prepared as possible.

"I work from home, so that's been a little more challenging with a kid running around," Pyne said. "My work has been pretty nice about not minding that there's a background noise."

ABC11 also spoke with Marty Long, who has two children at Enloe High School in Raleigh. She said her children being older has helped with schedule disruptions.

"I have to go virtual for a lot of things that I do. So luckily with the Internet, I can just sort of go to my own separate place and get work done. Of course, because my kids are older too, that helps a lot," she said.

Long said there's still a concern about how the cancellations may affect the school schedule come the end of the year.

"I'm wondering about the makeup days," she said. "I feel like we probably have used most of our banked days."

At Burke Brothers Hardware in west Raleigh, other parents such as Neil Alhanti were busy picking up supplies before the snow arrived. Alhanti said at times, it's been a challenge balancing working from home with taking care of his kids.

"Our stress goes up a little when they're at home. And we're also we're trying to make sure they're fed, they're entertained, they're happy. We're also trying to, you know, basically, deliver whatever we have to make our meetings," he said.

Neil was one of the many customers stocking up on last-minute supplies at Burke Brothers on Tuesday night. Lesleigh Hastings owns the business with her husband, Jeff, who she said had to scramble to find the Ice Melt.

"They had to rent a truck to go get it. They brought it back the first five pallets. He's going back to get the other five pallets," Hastings said.

Hastings added that they would try to tailor their hours to customers who needed those supplies.

"Phone's been ringing all day," she said. "I wish we could just answer the phone and say 'We have Ice-Melt coming at 5, and we have some sleds here', but you can't really do that. But yeah, we have tons of phone calls, tons of people."

ABC11 was in downtown Fayetteville on Tuesday night as preparations continued ahead of the winter storm headed toward the Sandhills.

While schools and government offices already announced they would be closed Wednesday, road crews were out brining the roads.

Workers from the county, city, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) were working. On Tuesday, they used more than 115,000 gallons and counting.

"We've been spraying at the police stations, fire departments. We'll be spraying some of our major corridors in the city, as well as the airport and the county operations center," said Craig Allen, streets division manager for the City of Fayetteville.

While schools and government offices already announced they would be closed Wednesday, road crews were out brining the roads.

Across the region, it was a similar story.

In nearby Wayne County, workers prepped for not just snow but a potentially messy mix, which can sometimes be even more of a hassle.

"Yeah, so our latest expectation is it's going to be a lot of mixed winter precipitation," said Joel Gillie with Wayne County. "So, you know, we're kind of on that line where we rarely get a lot of snow, it looks like, for the storm, it's going to be a lot more ice for us with a little bit of snow mixed in there. So that makes things a little more challenging."

Gillie said the last storm to roll through was a good test run and they're ready to go again this time. Even so, officials urged people to stay home.

"Our sheriff's deputies, they usually bring in a lot more of their all-wheel-drive vehicles for events like this to make sure that they're able to respond if needed," Gillie added. "But you know, our big message is, is that if you don't have to be out on the roads tomorrow, don't be out on the roads tomorrow."

If you have to drive, here are some tips on how to stay safe:

• Watch your speed. Accelerate and decelerate slowly

• Increase your following distance. It can be easy to lose control and slide into another car.

• And remember you're dealing with limited traction, don't try and power up hills ... try to gain some momentum; hitting the gas will only make your wheels spin.

Fayetteville said city crews will be putting down salt Wednesday morning before that snowfall hits in the afternoon into the evening.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) says it's approaching this storm a little differently since it is not expected to be a complete snow event.

"We might need to hire crews to cut down trees, so that's going to be a different element and we haven't had to do that in the last couple of times," said NCDOT Spokesperson Kim Deaner.

Crews will be working 12-hour shifts and they are gearing up to work possibly through the weekend.

Crews will be working 12-hour shifts and they are gearing up to work possibly through the weekend. DOT says it's approaching this storm a little differently since it is not expected to be a complete snow event.

Last week, there was another round of training for some employees.

"If you were new and you hadn't gone through a snow event, then you went through an extensive training session last week when we realized we needed to do this," said Deaner. "It's going to be a long event. Roads could be dangerous on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Hopefully, by the weekend things have calmed down. They're tired and we do our best to make sure they get their rest so that they're in shape as they hit the roads because ultimately, we want to keep everyone safe."

Maintenance crews in the Sandhills are preparing for the winter weather expected to hit the area on Wednesday and Thursday. The weather is expected to be a wintry mix--a little bit of everything.

Officials at Cumberland County--the state's Department of Transportation--and the city of Fayetteville say their current preparations for the upcoming winter blast are similar to their preps for the last big storm that came through the area. But this time, they're specifically warning people to be prepared for power outages.

On the roads, NCDOT says preparations started Monday with spraying brine. The maintenance engineer for Cumberland County says his entire staff--almost 50 people--have been working and will be salting roads all day and night on Wednesday.

Maintenance crews in the Sandhills are preparing for the winter weather conditions expected to the area and parts of central NC this week.

"We're at about 115,000 gallons of brine so far," said Jason Dunigan, the Cumberland County Maintenance engineer for NCDOT. We'll transition to putting spreaders in taking tanks out and go from there."

The city of Fayetteville says its workers have also started out spraying about 2,000 gallons of brine. Craig Allen, the streets division manager suggests drivers should take special care when manuevering certin parts of the city.

"Bridges will freeze prior before roadways. Well, so you need to take extra precaution on those bridges...especially those that have that are shaded or overcast, hit by trees or any other type of foliage, because those are less likely to melt than other areas."