With on-and-off lake-effect snowstorms hitting the region Friday -- and more snow forecasted for Saturday -- highway warriors were gearing up to plow the pathways.

More than two dozen fender benders had been reported to the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office by Friday afternoon and the National Weather Service was calling for 5 to 10 inches of snow in the area by Sunday morning.

Cayuga County Highway Superintendent George Wethey's mantra remains the same: "Slow down."

"Being new to the season, people need to slow down to get used to the snow," Wethey said. "They're calling for heavy lake effect snow at times (Friday) evening. As this continues, people will give themselves more time."

Heavy snow was expected to fall at times Saturday, and any wind would make things all the more difficult for highway crews.

"Lake-effect snow tends to be fluffier and drier, Wethey said, "but it drifts more if there's a little wind."

The county trucks and staff began their work at 4:30 a.m. Friday to plow a total of 370 miles of road, and Wethey said they would most likely continue through 10 or 11 p.m.

"It depends on how much snow we have," Wethey said. With the temperatures around 20, trucks will apply salt with some abrasive in the mixture, but they will be switching back to salt soon.

"The colder it gets, the more effective the salt is," he said. "Hopefully there will be no difficulty running out of salt this year."

Wethey said last year there were a lot of small icing events early on, which may have led to the salt shortage later in the season.

The county will be using a number of new trucks in its fleet: two tandem axle trucks, two 10-wheelers, and one 6-wheeler, all 2008 trucks.

"This is kind of early," Aurelius Highway Superintendent Kent Walter said of the snow, "but we're ready." His crew was out from 4 a.m. Friday and would plow about 75 miles of roads both ways until about 9 or 9:30 p.m. Walter said Aurelius has two 10-wheelers and a plow with a wing.

The county sheriff's office reported a total of 26 property damage accidents -- fender benders with no injuries -- before 6 p.m. Friday, with half of those inside Auburn's city limits. State Police in Auburn said they were aware of seven or eight accidents -- all in the city -- as of 3:30 p.m. The rest were all over the county, in places like Cato, Owasco, Sennett and Brutus, police said.

According the National Weather Service, Cato had received about three times as much snow as Auburn -- between 7 and 11 inches -- by Friday night.