Bone-chilling temperatures may have made life uncomfortable for the past few days, but the clear weather has given road crews a breather and time to assess their equipment and supplies.

A continuation of the bitterly cold temperatures — reaching down to 11 below in the county overnight — again forced the closing of all elementary and secondary schools in the county.

Despite school cancellations today, a few athletic events will go on as scheduled tonight.

Butler’s boys basketball team will host North Allegheny while the Butler girls’ home game against Pine-Richland is expected to go on as well. Butler’s wrestling team will travel to Franklin Regional to compete in the WPIAL team tournament tonight.

Seneca Valley’s boys basketball team is still hosting New Castle tonight.

This morning, Knoch officials were hopeful that the home boys basketball game against Highlands will be played tonight.

Scheduled sporting events at Mars, Karns City and Moniteau are postponed for tonight. Karns City’s boys basketball game with Union has been moved to Thursday night.

Slippery Rock University operated on a 2-hour delayed start, while Butler County Community College operated on a regular schedule.

Class schedules are expected to get back to normal on Thursday, when temperatures are to go into the teens on their way to the 30s or even 40s on Saturday.

Meanwhile, road crews are not just sitting around waiting for the next snow storm to form. They are busy maintaining their equipment and making sure there will be enough salt and other road materials available when the snow returns.

“Days like this they make sure the equipment is working well,” said city Councilman Richard Schontz Jr., who oversees the city roads department. “It takes a beating with the constant work.”

The department runs four trucks to maintain the streets.

The city also stocked up on salt on Tuesday.

The latest shipment gave the city 300 tons of salt.

It takes about 20 to 30 tons of salt to cover the city once.

The department can hold a capacity of about 500 tons in its two bins.

“We try to keep one bin as full as we can, in case there is a delay in delivery or an emergency,” Schontz said.

While snow and ice were not a major factor during the day, crews were still out on the streets looking for ice spots, Schontz said.

In Center Township, Mark Lauer, public works director, said crews have used about 2,500 tons of salt this year, and they have 1,500 tons left.

He said that he tries to have a surplus of salt every winter just to be on the safe side. Crews definitely needed it this year with snow starting mid-November and falling regularly since then.

“This is definitely the longest winter season we’ve had,” Lauer said. “You have to be prepared. Don’t underestimate Mother Nature.”

With the extreme cold temperatures, he said that crews are not using salt on the roads because it is not effective. Once it warms up, crews will go back to using salt.

Even though township crews have used more salt this winter than Lauer can remember in the past, he said they should have enough to last the rest of the season.

“Unless it goes to June, we should be fine. With this winter, who knows,” Lauer said.

John Hines, Slippery Rock Township public works director, said that the township’s supply of salt and antiskid material is strong.

“We’re in good shape,” Hines said.

He said that township crews have used about 50 tons more of road salt than they did last year. He also said the township used the money it got from the natural gas drilling fees to stock up on salt.

“We’re looking really good for the rest of the year,” Hines said.

The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh confirmed that from last weekend through Monday the snowfall totaled an estimated 7.4 inches.

Eagle staff writers Will DeShong, John Bojarski and David Pollio contributed to this report.