Ice, sleet, cold cling to state, lock up traffic

3/3/14
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON
A Dodge Neon sits sandwiched between two tractor-trailer rigs on the edge of westbound I-30 just south of University Ave. Monday March 3, 2014 in Little Rock, Ark. An accident scene which started with a car and a tractor-trailer culminated a few minutes later in a wreck which involved 5 tractor-Trailer rigs, an AHTD sand truck and two passenger vehicles as on coming traffic couldn't stop on the icy interstate. The driver of the Neon was not inside his car when the rig, right, sandwiched him in. No injuries were reported. 
OUTS: APNewsNow-Little Rock market, TV-Little Rock market, Radio-Little Rock market, Online-Nationwide market, Arkansas Business, Arkansas Times.
3/3/14 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON A Dodge Neon sits sandwiched between two tractor-trailer rigs on the edge of westbound I-30 just south of University Ave. Monday March 3, 2014 in Little Rock, Ark. An accident scene which started with a car and a tractor-trailer culminated a few minutes later in a wreck which involved 5 tractor-Trailer rigs, an AHTD sand truck and two passenger vehicles as on coming traffic couldn't stop on the icy interstate. The driver of the Neon was not inside his car when the rig, right, sandwiched him in. No injuries were reported. OUTS: APNewsNow-Little Rock market, TV-Little Rock market, Radio-Little Rock market, Online-Nationwide market, Arkansas Business, Arkansas Times.

Ice, snow and slush remained on roadways across the state Monday and caused serious traffic holdups in northeast Arkansas, where drivers remained at a standstill for hours on Interstate 40.

Temperatures didn’t get above freezing in Arkansas on Monday, with highs in the 20s across the state. In Little Rock, Monday’s high reached 28 degrees - the lowest high temperature in March in the city’s history, according to the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. The previous record was 30 degrees in 1932, 1960 and 1965.

Forecasters said temperatures should rise above freezing today, even hitting the low 40s in some areas. Roads were expected to remain icy this morning, however, because of refreezing overnight.

      

Gov. Mike Beebe declared a state of emergency in Arkansas as a result of the icy storm. State government offices in the Little Rock area will remain closed until noon today, when melting was predicted to start. Goverment offices of Little Rock and Pulaski County were set to open at noon, as well, with the latter cutting short early voting hours for the Pulaski Technical College millage election.

The conditions also prompted many colleges, universities and schools across the state to close for a second day today, including the Little Rock, North Little Rock, Pulaski County Special and Bryant school districts.

By Monday evening, about 12,000 Entergy Arkansas customers and 7,600 Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas customers remained without power, with the majority in the northeastern part of the state. Most Entergy customers should have power restored by tonight, though some may be without electricity until Wednesday night, a spokesman said. It may be Thursday before some Electric Cooperatives customers have their power restored, the utility said.

In Northwest Arkansas, residents awoke Monday to as much as 5 inches of snow and sleet on the ground and temperatures near zero. The area is expected to remain encased in ice until the thaw begins today, said Peter Snyder, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tulsa.

Snyder said an unusual “thundersleet” event occurred throughout much of the state Sunday. At an elevation of about 5,000 feet, the temperature was 47 degrees, said Snyder. Below 1,500 feet, the temperature was 13 degrees.

“This time of year it’s more likely to occur because you have the same processes that produce thunderstorms occurring,” Snyder said. “It passes through a colder air mass, caus3ing the rain to flash freeze. … When that occurs, you have much higher rates of accumulation.”

The quick rate at which sleet fell Sunday night and early Monday morning presented a challenge to Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department workers who attempted to pre-treat and clear the state’s roadways, spokesman Danny Straessle said. Trucks would clear one lane of a road only to have it re-covered in sleet before the adjacent lane was cleared, he said.

Drivers were backed up on a 10-mile stretch of I-40 from Earle to West Memphis for almost 10 hours without moving a significant amount Monday when two commercial carrier trucks stalled on ice at the 271 mile marker in West Memphis, Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said. There were reports of drivers leaving their vehicles and climbing over the median, causing others to have to maneuver around the abandoned vehicles when traffic started to move just before 3 p.m.

“It’s happening all over the place,” Straessle said. “That stretch of I-40 in eastern Arkansas got it really bad Sunday. As a result, there were a couple of accidents over there that started backing up traffic.

“As long as you’ve got traffic sitting on the highway, we can’t get our trucks on there to treat the roads. That’s probably one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the state between Memphis and North Little Rock, so it doesn’t surprise me that it’s that backed up.”

Straessle noted that truck drivers account for half of the more than 40,000 vehicles traveling the corridor each day on average. An 8-mile stretch of the interstate at Forrest City being down to one lane in both directions because of construction also contributed to the traffic snarl, he said.

Interstate 55 from the Mississippi River at Memphis to Blytheville was another trouble area Monday.

“There are multiple 18-wheelers jack-knifed in the ditch - things like that. It’s just wreaked a lot of havoc over there,” Straessle said.

Highway Department employees began working around the clock Sunday to treat roads all over the state using a mixture of sand, salt and calcium chloride. They continued their 24-hour response Monday night and into this morning.

The Central Arkansas Transit Authority on Monday suspended its bus service, primarily in Little Rock and North Little Rock, because of the weather.

“We will re-evaluate road conditions overnight to determine service for [today],” the agency said in a statement on its website.

The Arkansas State Police reported two weather-related fatalities Sunday on roadways.

About 2 p.m. in Rogers,the driver of a Dodge Durango lost control in snowy conditions while taking a curve. He hit a guardrail, killing passenger Bruce Kanki of Springdale, who would have turned 36 this month. Driver Daniel Naisher, 34, and passenger Allee Naisher, 28, were taken to Mercy Hospital for injuries.

Later about 5:45 p.m. on Arkansas 1 south at Whitehall, Johnny Hefner lost control of her vehicle on the icy roadway, spun into oncoming traffic and was hit by a Jeep driven by Tammy Hutchings. Hefner, 35, of Wynne, was killed. Hutchings’ injuries were treated at St. Bernard’s Hospital in Jonesboro.

The Pulaski County sheriff ’s office responded to 16 wrecks Sunday night and throughout the day Monday.

Spokesman Lt. Carl Minden said there wasn’t any one area of Pulaski County where road conditions stood out - rather they were troublesome everywhere. A Little Rock public works official said the same of the city. Spokesmen for the Little Rock and North Little Rock police departments didn’t respond to an email and calls Monday.

Utility crews’ ability to reach downed power lines was hampered by the conditions, impeding restoration efforts, Entergy Arkansas spokesman Sally Graham said. At the peak of the failure at 7:30 a.m. Monday, the state’s largest utility had 27,600 customers without power.

Damage to transmission infrastructure also hampered restoration for Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas workers, spokesman Rob Roedel said. At its peak, the company had 8,500 without power. The Electric Cooperatives include 17 distribution coops.

For Entergy, Phillips County was the hardest hit with about 9,600 without power, and then nearby Crittenden County with 5,600 failures at the peak. Entergy’s goal is to restore power to the majority of customers by late today. But those living in Helena, Blytheville, Marion and Forrest City may experience power failure into Wednesday, Graham said.

The Electric Cooperatives’ most affected area was Woodruff County and Craighead County. Power should be restored to its customers by Thursday, Roedel said. He noted that “locating faults in hundreds of miles of transmission line can be a challenge.”

Northeast Arkansas will get a brief warm-up Wednesday, but another storm system moving in may bring more light snow that night or early Thursday morning, said meteorologist Jonathan Howell with the Memphis National Weather Service. Today’s high in that area and central Arkansas will be in the low 30s, forecasters said.

Northwest and southwest parts of the state are predicted to see temperatures in the low 40s today, with southeast Arkansas experiencing temperatures in the higher 30s.

At the state’s largest airport, weather elsewhere forced the cancellation of at least 10 arrivals and departures by Monday morning, according to its website.

Runway 4R/22L, the main commercial service runway in use at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/ Adams Field, has remained open throughout the latest round of icy weather, spokesman Shane Carter said.

“Our airfield crew began working last night using a fleet of sweeper and vacuum trucks, spreader plows and backhoes to keep our main runway operational,” Carter said in an e-mail Monday.

The airport’s other commercial service runway, 4L/22R, has been closed since September because of construction. A smaller runway reserved for private and business aircraft, Runway 18/36, is closed because of the weather.

Cancellations included two United Airline flights from Houston, a US Airways flight from Washington, D.C., and a Southwest Airlines flight from Baltimore.

Six departures also were canceled. They included United flights to Chicago, Houston and Denver and a US Airways flight to Charlotte.

Carter said passengers should check directly with their airline before coming to the airport.

“It is at the discretion of each airline as to whether it operates,” he said. “Not all flights have been cancelled.”

No flights were canceled at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport at Highfill, according to its website. But some flights were shown to be delayed.

Information for this article was contributed by Bill Bowden and Noel E. Oman of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/04/2014

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