Cullman County residents woke to a generous blanket of still-accumulating snow on Friday, as the county continued under a winter storm warning set to remain in effect until at least 6 a.m. Saturday.

Officials declared all highways and roads throughout Cullman County impassable early Friday, as more than a dozen county road department crews spent the morning applying surface treatment to county-maintained roadways.

Aside from service and utility vehicles, few drivers had attempted to challenge the county’s treacherous road conditions as the wintry precipitation continued to fall Friday morning. Cullman County Emergency Agency (EMA) director Tim Sartin said that light traffic continued to move slowly along Interstate 65 in the morning hours with no major accidents or injuries reported.

With steady snowfall shifting to sleet in parts of Cullman County Friday morning — coupled with high Friday temperatures not expected not to rise above freezing — Sartin said that residents should avoid travel while the roads remain impassable. Travel conditions, he added, aren’t likely to significantly improve across the majority of area roadways for the remainder of the weekend.

“We’re not going above freezing today, and we’re probably not going above freezing tomorrow,” said Sartin on Friday. “This is going to be with us all weekend. My honest guess right now is that we’ll probably be dealing with this through Monday.”

As noon approached on Friday, no power outages had been reported within the service areas of both the Cullman Power Board and the Cullman Electric Cooperative. That could change, said Sartin, if additional precipitation through Friday afternoon arrives not as snow, but in the form of sleet or freezing rain.

“Right now, the sleet line is a little bit north of [Alabama Highway] 157, and beyond that line, it’s sleeting right now,” he said shortly before midday. “As long as the power holds out, we should be in good shape. But we could have a mess this afternoon, depending on where that snow and sleet line moves,” he said.

All local school campuses were closed on Friday, with Wallace State Community College operating remotely for the day. “Students should check Canvas for class information,” the college said in a statement. “Emails and phone messages will be monitored remotely. Spring 2025 registration continues through Jan. 14 for Regular term and Jan. 10 for Mini Term I.”

The Cullman County Commission declared a countywide state of emergency on Thursday in anticipation of the arrival of the winter storm. All Cullman County offices are closed on Friday, with chairman Jeff Clemons authorized to extend the closures further if ongoing weather and travel conditions require it.

In addition to monitoring its social media feed on Facebook, EMA advises  Cullman County residents to download the Everbridge public safety app to their mobile devices to receive tailored, real-time alerts about weather, road conditions, and emergency notifications. The Everbridge app is available for both Apple iOS and Android devices through the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Follow Cullman County VOAD on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CullmanCountyVOAD/) for current information about warming shelter locations, as well as each shelter’s operating policies. Follow the Cullman County EMA on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CullmanCountyEMA/) also for shelter information, as well as current weather-related alerts for Cullman County.