Freezing weather strands motorists on Interstate 540
Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/61428/
Slick roads made Monday evening an uncomfortable one for many people driving along U. S. 71 and Interstate 540.
While few injuries were reported, there were reports of numerous accidents from vehicles sliding into ditches after encountering icy conditions.
Among the accidents was a school bus carrying the Pleasant View Junior High boys’ and girls’ basketball teams. It slid into a ditch along U. S. 71 in Crawford County, just south of the Washington County line, at about 6 p. m.
There were 23 students on the bus along with their teacher and coach, and no one was injured, said J. R. Wood, chief of the Boston Mountain Fire Department, which responded to the accident.
“ The bus did not turn over, ” he said.
Pleasant View Junior High is part of the Mulberry / Pleasant View Bi-County School District.
“ It went into a ditch — that’s all, ” said Lonnie Ronkoe with the Boston Mountain Fire Department.
The teams were scheduled to play Fayetteville Christian School on Monday night. The bus had turned back near West Fork in an attempt to return home when the bus slid off the road, he said.
The students were taken to Sky-Vue Lodge south of Winslow following the accident. Sky-Vue owner Janice Jorgensen confirmed at 7: 30 p. m. that the students were staying at her hotel but declined to provide any other details.
Wood said the roads in south Washington County and north Crawford County were treacher- ous at the time of the accident. The fact that I-540 is an interstate gives people a false sense of how fast they can safely drive on it in poor conditions, he said.
“ I-540 is a fair-weather road, ” he said.
He said he thought the bus driver was taking U. S. 71 because he believed its conditions could be better than the interstate.
Traffic near West Fork in the southbound lanes of I-540 was snarled for hours Monday evening because of the slick roads.
Crews were trying to apply sand on the roads but were having trouble transporting it to the troubled locations, said Sgt. Gabe Weaver of the Arkansas State Police.
“ There’s just so much traffic because traffic’s bottlenecked, ” he said. “ It’s a mess. ”
Wood said he thought most of the accidents in his department’s coverage area were non-injury accidents where drivers slid into ditches.
Wood said he would like school officials to be cautious when it comes to attending sports events in the winter.
Some fire departments put chains on their tires in preparation of bad weather, said John Luther, director of the Washington County Department of Emergency Management. Besides that, there is not much else they can do to prepare for the elements, he said.
The National Weather Service reported freezing rain in Northwest Arkansas, the Arkansas River Valley and east Oklahoma and issued a winter weather advisory for those areas through 6 a. m. Tuesday. The heaviest ice accumulations in Northwest Arkansas were expected to be one-tenth of an inch.