Rain, sleet, snow, ice, repeat; Wayne County stops as winter hits
By Steve Herring and Ethan Smith
Published in News on February 17, 2015 1:46 PM
Wayne County was covered by a half inch of ice this morning as residents woke up to a scene out of the Disney movie "Frozen," but the county dodged the worst of the freezing rain that struck counties to the west, officials with the National Weather Service said.
Law enforcement officials said there were at least two dozen accidents around the county from 9 p.m. Monday until 9 a.m. today.
Sgt. G.L. Burton with the North Carolina Highway Patrol said the areas with the most crashes were N.C. 581 near the Neuse River bridge and U.S. 70 near El-Roy.
The Highway Patrol was able to clear and to process 16 wrecks since 9 p.m. Monday, Burton said. But as of press time, trooper were still working to clear the six wrecks along U.S. 70 near El-Roy, and were clearing a tractor-trailer wreck on N.C. 55 and an overturned car on U.S. 117.
An operator with the 911 call center said there were no fatalities or injuries reported during the night as a result of wrecks.
"There were only a handful of accidents overnight," the operator said. "There have been a few vehicles in ditches, but no fatalities or injuries that we know of."
Temperatures were expected to remain brutally cold through the rest of the week, possibly setting record lows.
And the threat of winter weather is not over either.
Another system is forecast to move across the area Saturday night into Sunday. Currently, it appears it will be in the form of rain, but that could change if the temperature does not moderate as expected over the weekend.
Scattered power outages were being reported this morning by Duke Energy.
At one time, close to 200 homes were without power in the Forest Knolls Road area off N.C. 111 South. Another 77 were without power on Country Day Road and 20 on Bridle Path Road just off U.S. 70 East.
Outages were reported as well in southeast Mount Olive, where 166 homes were affected, and in the Calypso, where there were close to 150 homes affected.
Some of the outages were reported as early as 3 a.m.
As of 10 a.m., 270 homes remained without power in Wayne County and 1,380 in Duplin County. Power was expected to be restored by 6 p.m.
Duke officials said crews were out assessing damage from the storm
Traffic was at a crawl on U.S. 117 and U.S. 70 and appeared to slow even more when it passed vehicles that had slid off the road into either the tree line or a ditch.
The ice forced county offices and public schools to close. Officials with Wayne County Public Schools said no decision had made yet about possible Wednesday delays or closures.
Garbage pickup scheduled for this morning in the city has been delayed until Wednesday morning.
Public Works Director Jose Martinez said crews began sanding and salting roads around the city at 10 p.m. Monday and haven't stopped since.
After working all night, Martinez said the public works department planned to continue working throughout the day and were going to "allow Mother Nature to take control."
"We're letting the temperatures rise, which will help melt some of the ice as we continue to sand and salt the roads," Martinez said.
But Public Works will not be plowing any areas around the city.
"We won't be plowing, which some people might ask why," Martinez said. "With the plow shoes the way they are, they're about an inch to an inch and a half high, so right now there just isn't enough accumulation on the roads for the plows to be effective."
Martinez said the public works department will remain on high alert for the rest of the day, searching for trouble spots throughout the city.
As of this morning, 23,500 gallons of brine had been spread on county roads by state Department of Transportation work crews.
"The best way to put it is like this -- it is like the Disney movie if they want to see a scene out of 'Frozen' all they have to do is look outside, and they have got it. It is like a skating rink out here," said Luther Thompson, DOT maintenance supervisor for the county. "We worked all night focusing on the primary roads, especially the four-lane sections, brining and treating all during the night and trying to push off what we can."
Those efforts will continue throughout the day and into the night as well on the four-lane and primary two-lane roads as brine and salt are applied.
Thompson expects it will take a couple of days to clear the roads.
Some of the best help would be for Mother Nature "to put some sunshine on us," he said.
Four-lanes this morning might still have some slush on them, and one lane might still have a glaze of ice, he said.
"But you can start to see some bare pavement coming up," he said.
Thompson said it appears to him that the ice is equally bad across the county.
The winter storm issued ahead of the storm remained in effect until 11 a.m. this morning.
Wayne County "dodged" the worst of the freezing rain, said Mike Moneypenny, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Raleigh.
The sleet mixed in with the freezing rain kept conditions from being even worse.
"You were actually fortunate to get sleet," he said. "But ice on the road is ice on the road."
"When it starts clearing up, please don't think you're home-free," Martinez said. "Tomorrow morning is going to be another case where there will be a lot of black ice on the roads, because what melts during the day today is going to freeze again tonight."
The cold air mass will stay around all week, forecasters said. The high could reach 40 on Wednesday before plunging to 12 degrees at night. Factoring in the wind chill it could feel more like zero, they said.
Thursday's predicted high of 20 degrees could set a new record. The temperature will fall to near 12 overnight.
Record lows could set Friday as well before temperatures struggle back into the 40s on Saturday. If that happens then the system that will move through Saturday night will drop a cold rain, but not ice, Moneypenny said.