Putnam under Travel Advisory

Despite extreme cold conditions Friday morning, Putnam County was under a Travel Advisory, the lowest level of travel advisory recognized by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security (IDHS).

A Travel Advisory (yellow on the three-color scale) means that routine travel or activities may be restricted in areas because of a hazardous situation, and individuals should use caution or avoid those areas.

As of 8:30 a.m., the local temperature was -8 degrees, with wind gusts carrying the wind chill to -36 degrees at times.

However, the winter storm that rolled through the area that has affected much of the country carried limited snow locally as compared to projections. Additionally, the temperature plummeted so fast on Thursday afternoon that freezing rain was limited ahead of the snow.

Locally, Hendricks Power Cooperative reported 35 customers without power in the Greencastle zip code as of 8:30. Neither Duke Energy nor Parke County REMC reported any outages in Putnam County.

While travel condition could be worse, citizens are advised to stay home if at all possible due to slick conditions, blowing snow and, most notably, bitter cold and wind gusts that could produce frostbite in a short amount of time.