Friday, January 18, 2008
Messy snow day
Snowfall ranging from 2 to 6 inches gave students the day off, but an eight-car pileup on the interstate kept authorities busy.
Josh Meltzer | The Roanoke Times
Teneisha Hall, 9, (left) attacks Wentworth Gordon with snow while he mashes snow in the face of Brandon Hargrow, 14, during a game of snow football Thursday in Roanoke. Four to 5 inches of snow was common in the Roanoke Valley, and a little more fell in the New River Valley.
Video
Photo gallery
YourPix
Map
Kevin Myatt's Weather Journal blog
Related story
The year's first winter storm punished the roadways of Southwest Virginia, contributing to scores of accidents, including a nasty eight-vehicle pileup on Interstate 81.
Snowfall ranging from 2 to 6 inches shut schools and busied police and rescue squads as cars slid off the road one after another.
Particularly hard hit was I-81 in Botetourt County, where three separate crashes sent at least five people to the hospital, said John Manspile, chief of the Buchanan Volunteer Fire Department.
The biggest of the three crashes happened just south of Natural Bridge about 7:40 a.m., when a southbound tractor-trailer turned over onto a pickup truck that wedged itself inside part of the trailer, Manspile said. A man in the truck was hospitalized with serious head injuries, he said.
"It was just an accordion effect then on from the initial wreck," Manspile said of the eight-vehicle mess.
A few hours later and about a half-mile away, in the northbound lanes, a truck that was going too fast fell sideways and was hit from behind, Manspile said. Another accident involved a car and a tractor-trailer.
At one point, northbound traffic was backed up at least 10 miles on I-81.
While Botetourt County was hard hit with accidents, few localities made it through the day unscathed.
In Giles and Montgomery counties, a slew of disabled vehicles blocked roads and got stuck in ditches.
"A lot of towing bills are going to be coming out," said Lt. Brad St. Clair of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.
Franklin County had 49 accidents from about 5:45 a.m. until about 4 p.m.
Lt. Darryl Saunders of the Bedford County Sheriff's Office attributed some of the crashes to foolishness -- people driving along as if the weather were perfect.
"It's just like it's a sunny day out there," Saunders said.
A spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation said that, by late afternoon, clearing efforts and warming weather had eliminated all but isolated slick spots on major roads, while neighborhood streets were still mostly snow covered. Crews planned to scrape those overnight.
VDOT divides snow-plowing duties with a contractor, Infrastructure Corp. of America.
The company, whose focus is large roads, had difficulty with a minor snowfall in December. After calculating various lapses, VDOT withheld $32,900 of ICA's December paycheck as a penalty.
This storm, ICA met expectations, said Heidi Coy, VDOT spokeswoman.
"Their response to this storm was really good," Coy said. "They had all of their employees out and all of their equipment deployed."
In the Roanoke Valley, 4 to 5 inches of snow was common on Thursday, with 5 to 6 inches in the New River Valley. The National Weather Service received one report of 8 inches from Laurel Ridge in Montgomery County. Most areas saw a crust of light sleet and glaze ice on top of the snow.
While today promises sunshine and temperatures in the 40s, more snow could be headed to Southwest Virginia on Saturday.
That threat of snow will be followed by frigid northwest winds bringing the coldest weather so far this season down from the Arctic Circle. Lows in the single digits and teens are likely across the area by Sunday and Monday.
School is closed today in Bedford and in the counties of Roanoke, Bedford, Floyd and Henry.
Staff writers Amanda Codispoti, Kevin Myatt and Jeff Sturgeon contributed to this report.
