McCook,NE : No serious injuries in numerous accidents on April, Friday 13th 2018

The Red Willow County sheriff and his deputies investigated “accordion style” accidents involving seven vehicles Friday afternoon and evening, blaming slick roads and white-out conditions on a winter-like spring storm that roared in on 60-70-mile-an-hour north winds.

Kelly Doyle, district operations maintenance manager for the Nebraska Department of Roads in McCook, said this morning that his state road crews “had their work cut out for them. It was dangerous out there.”

Sheriff Alan Kotschwar said this morning no one was injured in any of the accidents in Red Willow County.

Kotschwar said a wrecker and the big Hemtt trucks of the Red Willow Western Rural Fire Department helped get trucks unstuck and up hills on Highway 6-34 east of McCook and worked to get vehicles off the highway after Highways 6-34, 83 and 89 were officially closed. Closing 83 helped reduce the number of vehicles funneling onto Interstate 80, which was clogged with accidents and stranded and abandoned vehicles, and closed to traffic, the sheriff said.

Kotschwar said he told his deputies to get cars and people off the highways after accidents started piling up “accordion style.” “We had to get them off the highway,” Kotschwar said, to avoid getting someone hurt.

Heavy snow and winds gusting up to 70 miles-an-hour out of the north-northwest created white-out conditions on Highway 83 north of McCook. Kotschwar said he was “riding the rumble bar to get some traction.”

Kelly Doyle, district operations maintenance manager for the Nebraska Department of Roads in McCook, said this morning that his road crews “had their work cut out for them. It was dangerous out there,” with drifting a major problem in the Imperial and Grant areas. In the McCook area, less snow made drifting a lesser concern, although reduced visibility was still a problem, he said.

Doyle said one car hit the guardrail near the state yard east of McCook, and semi-trucks had trouble getting up the hills. “As traffic backed up, there were several rear-end accidents,” he said.

State road crews worked until about 10 p.m., Friday, and then Saturday were out again from about 4-5 a.m. until 5 p.m. or so.

Doyle said when the sun came out, it started melting the snow, but then, particularly in the Imperial-Grant areas, the slush refroze on the highways. “When the winds went down, we were able to treat for the ice,” he said.

Kyle Potthoff, City of McCook’s public works director, said that reduced visibility and the possibility of power lines and trees down in the heavy snow and gusty wind were big concerns Friday evening. Poor visibility wasn’t worth the risk of sending crews out early in the storm, he said.

City street crews went out about 3 a.m., Saturday, Potthoff said, to work first on major streets, snow routes and the airport, which was closed for a time.

Most personnel was home by noon Saturday, after the sun came out and started melting the snow.

Although there were some street lights out in McCook, along B Street and North Highway 83 during the storm, there were no outages like those further north in the worst depths of the storm in Nebraska.

Mark C. Becker, supervisor of Corporate Media and Media Services for the Nebraska Public Power District, said this morning that NPPD had approximately 4,900 customers without power at various times. Poor road conditions combined with blizzard conditions kept NPPD crews from completing the work Friday night and most of Saturday.

Butte, on the Nebraska-South Dakota border north of O’Neill, lost power Friday night. It was restored for 240 customers at 2:45 p.m. Sunday after a mobile generator was put into operation. It will remain operating until permanent repairs can be made.

Atkinson, southwest of Butte, also lost power Friday, but was re-energized at 5:50 p.m. Sunday for 903 customers. NPPD used a mobile transformer to restore power. That unit will remain in place until NPPD completes rebuilding a sub-transmission line between O’Neill and Atkinson, which feeds power to Atkinson. NPPD reported that 39 structures on the line were damaged Friday night during the storm. Work will begin to replace structures early this week.

Becker said that work will resume today on six structures lost near Ogallala. Materials had to be transported from York to Ogallala, but they couldn’t be moved until Sunday because I-80 was closed to traffic on Saturday.

For parts of northern Nebraska, there’s another winter-like storm on the way toward the end of the week.

In Southwest Nebraska, the forecast is for more rain than snow, with 20-30 percent chance of rain Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Chances improve to 80 percent Friday and Saturday. The forecast doesn’t mention “the other stuff,” Sheriff Kotschwar said.

“We’ll hope temperatures stay up,” Kelly Doyle said.

Source :
No serious injuries in numerous accidents