White out conditions wreck havoc

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Blowing snow last Thursday led to a busy morning for the Seward County Sheriff’s Office.

Chelsea Smith, operations manager for the sheriff’s office, said deputies began responding to accidents  on Interstate 80 at 4:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 4. With a mid-morning shift change included, Smith said 10 deputies worked the interstate as heavy winds and falling snow created white out conditions throughout the morning.

“Everyone was out there,” Smith said.

Smith said deputies, assisted by Nebraska State Patrol, worked traffic control and accident response on the interstate throughout the day. The conditions also required deputies to run “football traffic”, where a patrol car straddles the lanes in an attempt to have motorists slow down.

Although the call volume was high, Smith said all accidents on the interstate were relatively minor in nature.

“All of them were just non-injury accidents and slide offs into the ditch,” she said.

Smith said that last Thursday’s storm generated more calls for emergency response and law enforcement assistance than the snowstorm the previous week that dumped more than a foot of snow across Nebraska. She said more motorists were likely out because of a minor amount of snow forecasted and the fact that school and other activities were still scheduled.

“People probably didn’t prepare for this as much as they did the last snow storm (Jan. 25),” she said. “Schools were still going and had a late start, so people may have thought it’d be okay.”

However, she said conditions deteriorated quickly and caught many motorists off guard.

“The lines on the roads got covered up so fast, it was pretty hard to stay in the lane,” she said.