Ice-covered interstates stranded thousands of motorists across eastern Arkansas on Tuesday, causing miles-long traffic backups on the state’s major thoroughfares and prompting the Arkansas State Police to request help from the Arkansas National Guard.
The guardsmen, who had been called to active duty Sunday, joined state troopers and officers with the Game and Fish Commission for several hours Monday night and Tuesday morning, aiding motorists on stretches of Interstate 40 near Forrest City and Interstate 55 near Blytheville.
In those areas, traffic was snarled for more than 18 hours in some places, and motorists spent the night in their vehicles after icy roads caused tractor-trailers to jackknife and block several lanes.
Also Tuesday, the National Weather Service said some areas of the state could get a small amount of freezing precipitation again tonight.
Troopers also reported a fatal crash in Cleburne County that occurred Sunday, marking the third traffic fatality that was potentially weather-related since the winter storm hit the state.
State police spokesman Bill Sadler said troopers hadn’t yet determined whether wintry weather caused the crash, but a preliminary report indicates that it was sleeting and the roads were icy when a 1989 Ford sport utility vehicle collided with a 1999 Chevrolet Blazer driven by Jimmy McLin of Montegut, La.
McLin, 46, died from injuries suffered in the collision, which occurred on Arkansas 25 north of Arkansas 5. The driver and a passenger in the Ford were injured in the crash, according to the report.
Sadler said that on Tuesday, troopers didn’t report any serious injury or fatality crashes, he said. “The vast majority of these have been very minor collisions.”
Across central and northern Arkansas, numerous school districts closed for a second day on Tuesday including Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special, but most schools in central Arkansas were expected to be in session for at least part of today.
Kelly Rodgers, superintendent of the North Little Rock School District, said late Tuesday that he expected a late start to the school day today. District employees drove the bus routes Tuesday to evaluate road conditions, and maintenance crews treated campus sidewalks and parking lots with a salt and sand mixture.
“We want to delay the buses as long as we can and not have them run in the dark. We want to avoid black ice and also give traffic a chance to get out of the way so we can get kids to school safely,” Rodgers said.
Little Rock School District spokesman Pamela Smith said district personnel worked throughout the day Tuesday to melt the ice on the school walkways and parking lots. As of late Tuesday, the district expected to hold classes today on time.
After 10 canceled flights on Monday because of inclement weather elsewhere in the nation, Bill and Hillary National Airport/Adams Field returned to normal Tuesday with only two flights canceled, according to its website. Both United Airlines flights had Houston as the origin or destination.
Central Arkansas Transit Authority resumed limited service Tuesday on its snow routes after 8 a.m., which is later than it normally begins daily service. There was no word Tuesday evening on whether normal service would resume today.
Gov. Mike Beebe had also ordered state offices to open at noon Tuesday, allowing a few extra hours for icy and slushy roads to thaw for most employees traveling to work in central Arkansas.
But the worst of the weather-related problems Tuesday were in the eastern part of the state, where traffic ground to a standstill for several hours beginning Monday evening and stretching into late Tuesday in three constructions zones - two on I-40 and one on I-55.
The traffic backups caused the postponement of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s women’s basketball game, scheduled for Tuesday night, after the opposing team from Georgia State couldn’t make it through the traffic jam on I-40. The game was rescheduled for 7 p.m. today.
Elsewhere in eastern Arkansas, Sadler said, scores of motorists spent the night on the southbound lanes of I-55 in Mississippi County between Blytheville and Memphis because jackknifed tractor-trailers and other large commercial vehicles with frozen brakes blocked the roadway.
Traffic slowed and eventually stopped about 10:30 p.m. Monday. It didn’t start moving again until late Tuesday morning.
“If you were stuck there, you were stuck,” Sadler said.
One of those stuck travelers was Mary Higgins, a church administrator from St. Louis who was traveling to Chattanooga, Tenn. She spent the night on the interstate outside Blytheville, packed in a doubledecker Megabus along with about 60 other people.
The bus stopped about 9 p.m. Monday night for gas and got back on the interstate near the Missouri-Arkansas line shortly after.
“And then we just sat outside of Blytheville until maybe 7 this morning. I mean completely still,” Higgins said by phone about noon Tuesday, still on the bus.
Higgins, 33, said some of the passengers were lucky enough to have sandwiches from the night before, but she spent the night kicking herself because she hadn’t wanted to wait in the long restaurant line.
“I had some fruit snacks,” she said, laughing. “You know, the natural ones, and I just ate one about every 15 minutes.”
“The bathroom is just now getting full. I’ve only been taking one sip of water every 30 minutes because I don’t want to go back there,” she said.
Through the night, most of passengers stayed in good spirits. Some played music or attempted to sleep. Others got acquainted with other passengers, “chitchatting so we wouldn’t just fall into our own puddles of despair,” she said.
“We were surrounded by good people,” she said, laughing. “It could have been a lot worse.”
Elsewhere in eastern Arkansas, traffic backed up as much as 40 miles on two stretches of I-40 that sandwich Forrest City.
There, officers with the Game and Fish Commission delivered fuel - free of charge - to some stranded drivers, said Nancy Ledbetter, the commission’s spokesman.
The worst of the backup was in constructions zones in St. Francis County. In between the congestion for most of Tuesday was the Waffle House in Forrest City, which sits just south of I-40.
Margaret Williams, a cook there, said customers came pouring in all day, ordering steak and eggs and telling stories of being stranded on I-40. Williams said at one point so many people came in that some of the cooks had to run out and buy more bacon and eggs.
“We have had a lot of people come off the road coming from Little Rock, coming from Memphis, saying it took them six hours to get here, 12 hours to get here,” she said. “Some of them have been on the road since 12 o’ clock yesterday and just made it to the Waffle House at 12 o’ clock today.”
By Tuesday afternoon, Williams said the crowd had finally died down, and traffic was moving better on the interstate, which can be seen from the windows of the Waffle House.
But farther west about 4 p.m., miles-long lines of backed up tractor-trailers near Brinkley could be seen from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter that lifted off from Camp Robinson.
Maj. Matt Snead, the Guard’s spokesman, said the helicopter was tasked with assessing road conditions and traffic congestion along the two interstates. Its crew was among about 70 guardsmen who had been called to active duty to assist state agencies responding to the winter storm since Sunday.
Most of the guardsmen have been on standby at armories across the state, Snead said, but as of Tuesday afternoon, two teams of four guardsmen in Humvees had been dispatched to assist troopers on I-40 and I-55, he said.
The guardsmen were requested by state police Troop D in Forrest City on Monday night and again on Tuesday morning, said Yvette Smith, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. The request came after Beebe declared a state of emergency for the state on Monday as a result of the icy and snow-packed roads.
David Nilles, spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, said Tuesday evening that conditions were improving for most of the state, but I-40 from the White River to Forest City was still backed up and he anticipated that the gridlock would continue through this morning.
Nilles said road conditions were worse on Tuesday than previous days because what little ice that had melted refroze overnight.
“First thing Tuesday morning there were multiple accidents involving cars and jackknifed 18-wheelers. That created a shortage of tow trucks to deal with them,” Nilles said.
Nilles said he expected “major improvements” by mid-morning today.
Temperatures also were expected to rise today above freezing in most areas of the state, said Julie Lesko, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.
A large portion of the ice and snow will likely begin melting off today, as much of the state will see temperatures in at least the mid-30s and in some areas into the 40s, Lesko said.
But another line of freezing precipitation will be moving into northern parts of the state tonight, leaving behind possibly a hundredth of an inch of ice in some places, she said.
“We don’t expect a lot with it,” she said, adding: “What’s going to happen Wednesday and Thursday will not be anywhere near the magnitude of this last system.” Information for this article was contributed by Noel Oman and Troy Schulte of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/05/2014