Epic Ice Storm!

[MnWilly]

Wow, where do I start? I got off work about 3:15am or so. 35W was for all practical purposes closed as it was just literally a parking lot with cars facing every direction. I chose Hiawatha and the Mendota Bridge to get home. As I drove out of downtown onto the entrance ramp to the freeway part of 55 I felt that may have been a mistake. The bridge leading out of downtown and onto the freeway was the slickest ice I have ever seen. Best speed I could make was about 5 or 7 mph. A car in front of me tried using his brakes; this caused his car to begin a silhouette maneuver that a world class ballerina would have been proud of! Now I'm going right for him and the brakes were obviously not an option. I remembered all the scenes from race car movies where they are going around a curve and into an accident and can't see anything. I did the same thing...just kept going and crossed my fingers I wouldn't hit him. As it turned out the guy in front of me simply pirouetted right off the road and I skated right through.

Just after I got passed this guy I saw an incredible scene on NB Hiawatha. Where NB Hiawatha comes into downtown it is curvy and hilly. At the 7 st exit/NB 35W entrance was a sight to behold. I literally saw a semi-truck turned sideways and just sliding down the hill around the curve. There were numerous tour buses and regular cars and trucks just parked and abandoned on this stretch of road. They had all slid to the outside corners of the road. A bunch of the people were just watching as new cars would enter this stretch of road and just give up as their cars would just skate out of control. Good thing was nobody was doing over 5 or 10 mph so I doubt anyone got hurt real badly.

I never got over 10 or 12 on Hiawatha. Had to use the grass and ditch for traction on the spiral entrance ramp from Hiawatha onto 55 highway by the airport. On 55 it was great; a salt truck had just passed. Problem was he was just doing the ring road (hwy 5) around the airport. I crested the slight hill leading to the Mendota Bridge. Nothing but a parking lot with cars pointing every direction. Looked like one of those movie scenes where everyone is leaving town gets stuck. I backed up (usually a no-no but was only going 5 mph anyway) and took hwy 5 to 494. Home free!! 494 had been salted all the way to Eagan.

Thought you guys would enjoy hearing my misery. All in all it only took about 1:15 to get home. Not too bad all things considered.

Eric, did your wife work last night?

[Chadwick]

Yeah, that was some pretty interesting stuff. There were still abandoned cars all over at noon the next day.

AWD is great but with no tire traction at all lol...

[Klaus]

Yeah I had my 4x4 going into the sideways crab walk a couple times.

[Naya]

Saturday night/Sunday morning was an absolute fustercluck (that's right, I said fustercluck) all around the metro.

So our stupid asses decided to go to Canterbury Saturday night before it started raining/icing/sleeting, whatever you call it, to have dinner and play cards. We tried leaving at 11:30pm, and 169, in both directions, was a parking lot.

We wanted to take the ramp for 13 but was blocked by a fire truck and a rolled-over SUV. It looked like it flipped several times, the roof was beat up pretty bad. We went three miles, turned around, and 169 SB was a completely dead stop, we had to take 101 over to 83 to get back to Canterbury, where we stayed until 4:30am.

It then took us 45 minutes to get from Canterbury to home to Eagan. Luke couldn't go more than 20 mph. Some of the roads had been better salted by then, but not by much.

It took me nearly two hours to get in to work this morning. Overpasses and bridges were just ice. Saw lots of accidents on overpasses as I took 494 west to Wayzata. Yeah, I work in Wayzata now, got a new job as a DBA.

I don't like this reactive approach cities are taking towards winter weather the last handful of years. Save money yah yah, but what kind of money are you really saving when your police force ends up having to respond to over 900 phone calls in a matter of 4 hours and 430 accidents in one night?

[Ender]

Yeah, Sat night sucked. The roads were very slippery and we shouldn't have even tried to leave Canterbury. The rolled over SUV looked like it was going about 60 when it lost control because it was totally destroyed.

Anyways, there is something I have noticed over the past couple years: cities and MNDOT have decided in their infinite wisdom that in order to try to save money and make the environmentalist extremists happy, they are not going to prepare the roads ahead of time before winter by salting BEFORE an ice storm comes. Instead, they are just going to salt when they need it during and after a storm. It wasn't just this storm over the weekend... if you will remember there was a storm in the beginning of winter last year that had some ice in it and the roads were very slippery then as well. In both cases there was NO salt on the roads ahead of time.

This is soooo fucking stupid. First of all, the salt trucks can't drive very well either when the roads are a skating rink and cars are piled up in their way. I saw a salt truck stuck at a dead stop in a parking lot traffic jam on 169 when we tried to leave Sat night... he isn't doing much good there. Secondly, the safety of the public should be the LAST thing to be sacrificed when it comes to cutting costs... or better yet it should not be sacrificed at all.

Maybe this disaster changed the minds of city and MNDOT officials and they will go back to properly preparing roads for winter. It is too bad that it took a disaster for them to realize cutting back on this was a mistake though.

[Klaus]

I agree the cut backs the last couple years have made for some interesting commutes. I do think the Saturday night storm was just badly timed - Sunday morning is probably the time with the lease amount of plow truck drivers available. This morning for me seemed better - there were plows everywhere (which slowed down traffic) but the roads were good going into Mpls.

[Ender]

I know late Sat night is a bad time for a storm since few city workers are on the job then, but i believe it was still forcasted ahead of time by Fri night (though i obviously didn't pay attention to that and went somewhere). As soon as a storm like that is forcasted at the beginning of winter, they need to be out there ahead of time and workers need to be called to the job in an emergency. That used to happen, but something in the past few years has changed and it does not happen anymore.