North Texas may get more sleet, freezing rain
Posted on 02/25/2003 2:27:56 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
North Texas may get more sleet, freezing rain
02/25/2003
Memo to the cautious, the indispensable, or the just plain crazy who went to work Tuesday: it may not be any better Wednesday.
The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory for much of the region beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday and continuing through noon Wednesday. The agency said travel during this period is "strongly discouraged."
"We are looking at a chance for precipitation heading into the early morning hours tomorrow after midnight," WFAA-TV (Channel 8) meteorologist Greg Fields said. "There will be a chance for us to get some freezing rain, a little sleet."
WFAA-TV An 18-wheeler blocks part of I-35E near downtown Dallas. |
The weather service advisory said while the amount of precipitation will be light, "any ice accumulation will only add to current problems."
Hundreds of North Texas schools, government offices and businesses shut their doors Tuesday after a winter storm coated the region with up to 3 inches of freezing rain and sleet. Temperatures in the 20s were expected to do little to melt the blanket of ice.
Highway crews salted and sanded overpasses and bridges throughout the night but the roads were still slick for the commuters who decided to brave them.
The southbound lanes of Interstate 35E were closed just before 1 p.m. after several big rigs jackknifed.
"It's really a mess," said WFAA-TV (Channel 8) helicopter pilot Roger Smith, who had a bird's-eye view of developing traffic snarls. "There's really no other way to put it: Stemmons ... is basic pandemonium at this point."
The Dallas Police Department reported many fender benders but no serious accidents or injuries. The same was true in several area cities, including Arlington, Flower Mound, The Colony, Rockwall and Rowlett.
"We have a lot of slow traffic and one good thing was that we just haven't had a lot of people out and about," said Officer Richard Douglass, spokesman for the Lewisville Police Department. "The roads just aren't that congested."
Still, authorities warned travelers not to let down their guard.
"It's dangerous out there," said Lt. Ben Valdez of the Department of Public Safety regional office in Garland. "The roads are not safe. Some people are getting through. But just because they are not closed, does not mean they are safe."
Stuffed under their parkas and scarves and wiping sniffly noses brought on by the 19-degree chill, hundreds of people took advantage of the free fares offered by Dallas Area Rapid Transit on its trains and buses.
JIM MAHONEY / DMN Dylan Perez (center) along with his friends Andy DeLeon (left) and Mike Weatherwax of Lewisville take advantage of a rare day off from school to practice their snowboarding technique. |
Sarah Horswill of Richardson, a DART novice, said she was taking advantage of the free ride to get to her job at Unitrin Property and Casualty.
"I figured as long as I can take the train I may as well go in," she said. "This is definitely much easier than the freeway."
Law enforcement officers, postal workers, doughnut and coffee shop employees, and many other people decided their employers couldn't do without them Tuesday. As one DART rider joked, "This is what essential personnel looks like."
The transit agency expected to carry about 30,000 rail riders Tuesday, half its normal passenger load. But those who rode - like DART president and chief executive Gary Thomas - were able to take the sleet and ice in stride.
"It was a lot less stressful for me to ride the train than if I had driven in," Mr. Thomas said.
Rebekah Sessoms, a Michigan native, took advantage of her experience with driving in icy conditions to get to her waitressing job at Café Brazil in Deep Ellum.
VERNON BRYANT / DMN Motorists navigate a sleet covered Central Expressway in Plano. |
"It was actually fine and there was no one on the road," she said. "I live really close. It was just a straight drive here. I just had to go slower."
Café Brazil was one of the few restaurants open in the district. "We don't close down for stuff like this," Ms. Sessoms said. "We are not afraid of it."
About 50 customers typically take their breakfast coffee and pastry from the Café de France Bakery and Café in Arlington's Lincoln Square. By 10:30 a.m., manager Neil Tavakoli hadn't made a single sale.
"This is what we pay taxes for?" Mr. Tavakoli said, pointing toward ice-encrusted Collins Street.
"When you have weather like this, you have to prepare for this," Mr. Tavakoli said. "The least they could do is send out a sand truck."
City officials could not be reached for comment. Their offices were opening late.
Truckers were reporting that their trips were taking twice as long.
JIM MAHONEY / DMN Highland Village resident Robert Ketenjian looks at his SUV that flipped along I-35E in Lewisville. Mr. Ketenjian says he learned a lesson that you don't try to drive 70 mph on ice covered highways. |
Faye Wylie, the administrative assistant at the Luv's truck stop at Interstate 20 and Polk Street in Dallas, said she's put out all the kitty litter and rock salt she can.
"The trucks are having a tough time just getting in here," she said. "So we're not swamped at all."
For locksmiths, ice and snow mean helping people who have locked themselves out of home and vehicle. Inclement weather often throws people off their usual routine and they make mistakes, said Doug Pruitt of Promenade Lock Doc in Richardson.
"Our history has been that on icy days, it is usually one of our busiest days of the year," Mr. Pruitt said. "We run a huge amount of automobile business. People lock their keys in the car. They get in a hurry. They leave the car running to keep the heat on. We'll have a full crew running today."
At the 24-hour AutoZone on Broadway in Garland, manager Johnny Rangel said a freezing rain expected late Tuesday would not force the store to close its doors to people who wanted to buy de-icers like Driveway Heat and Windshield Melt.
"Last night, people were coming in at 1 or 2 in the morning, buying stuff to get ready for this," Mr. Rangel said.
The same philosophy was in place at Lewisville Feed Mill, where owner James Polser busily assisted customers in finding salt and shovels to clear ice from their sidewalks and driveways.
WFAA-TV Delta jets are de-iced at D/FW International Airport Tuesday morning. |
"It's business as usual," Mr. Polser said. "We are fixin' to start making feed deliveries. If we have a customer calling for feed, we go and don't let the weather slow us down. We'll just pull on some coats and gloves and head out."
Heading out wasn't possible for dozens of North Texas apartment residents whose vehicles were trapped or damaged after ice and snow collapsed carports.
Two carports toppled at the Springcrest Apartments in the 2000 block of Springcrest Drive in Arlington. Another carport reportedly collapsed at the Ashton Point Apartments in the 7000 block of Skillman Street in Dallas.
And in Mesquite, about 10 cars were trapped when a carport caved in at the Prescott Place Apartments in the 2700 block of Franklin. Priscilla Allen, a home health-care nurse, was unable to get her vehicle out.
"Right now, my insulin-dependent, bedfast patients who live alone are gong to have a real problem," she said.
The wintry weather didn't stop Pedro Cecilio from running errands, even if he was limited to a 5 mph pace. The fleet service clerk for American Airlines planned on giving himself two hours to drive to work. His commute typically takes 45 minutes.
"I've been putting on the brakes more than the gas," he said. "I don't want to kill myself."
Rather than drive, some people called cabs. Taxi drivers were hustling to get stranded travelers from their hotels to the airport, said Robert Reid, a dispatcher with Cowboy Cab.
"They're moving slow because they can't drive fast," he said. "I've got drivers going to the market center and D/FW (airport) and it's taking half an hour to an hour. I just don't have many drivers out there. I've got some who were afraid to drive."
According to Ken Capps, vice president for public affairs at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, American had cut its schedule by half and Delta anticipated a 25 percent reduction. The runways were open and sanded, he said.
Southwest Airlines flights from Dallas Love Field resumed about 9 a.m. "We only had to cancel 44 out of our 130 flights at Dallas Love Field so far," said Ginger Hardage, a spokeswoman.
The icy mess of a storm came courtesy of two vastly different weather systems - a mass of cold air hugging the ground and a big patch of warm, wet weather swirling in from the West, riding over the top of the cold. The trouble extended as far south as the Hill Country.
"This event was pretty well forecasted. It certainly was not a surprise, but many people didn't hear about it because of the weekend," said Chris Robbins, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "It's unfortunate that it came on a Monday when people had been out of the loop."
Some folks tried their hand at sledding using whatever worked - cookie sheets, cardboard boxes, skateboards without wheels, laundry baskets and inflated air mattresses. At the ice-covered hill at the Carrollton Greenbelt, Walter Bowen of Carrollton gave his children rides on a real sled - a 50-year-old artifact handed down from his father.
Lori Elliott of Carrollton had tied one end of a rope to a signpost at the top of the icy hill and threw down the other end. The kids grabbed the rope and pulled themselves back up.
"We always come here when it snows," Ms. Elliott said. "This is the place to be."
Thorne Russell, a Richardson fourth-grader, went outside at 5:30 a.m. and hadn't been back inside by lunchtime.
"We're playing around a lot," he said, taking a break from horsing around with friend Francisco Chacon and dad Joe Russell on the lawn of the Richardson Civic Center.
They found plenty of fun things to do, with one disappointment.
"You can't make a snowball," Thorne complained. "This stuff won't pack at all."
Thousands of students got a holiday after the storm shut down virtually all schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The good news: the scheduled Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) examinations were postponed. The bad news: the reprieve will be brief.
"We've advised schools that if they delay their start time, but open by 10 a.m., they should give the test," said Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Graves Ratcliffe. "If they start after 10 a.m., we tell the districts it's their call. And if they cancel school completely, we tell them they need to give the TAKS on the first full day of school when they reopen."
Dallas Web Staff reporters Kimberly Durnan, Linda Leavell, Phil Oakley and Walt Zwirko, Dallas Morning News reporters Eric Aasen, Julie Elliott, Tony Hartzel, Dave Levinthal, Ray Leszcynski, Bill Lodge, Clay Morton, Sarah Post and Scott Stafford, and WFAA-TV (Channel 8) contributed to this report.
Watch WFAA-TV (Ch. 8) and TXCN (Cable Ch. 38 in Dallas area) for news updates throughout the day and read more in tomorrow's Dallas Morning News .
Memo to the cautious, the indispensable, or the just plain crazy who went to work Tuesday: it may not be any better Wednesday.
The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory for much of the region beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday and continuing through noon Wednesday. The agency said travel during this period is "strongly discouraged."
"We are looking at a chance for precipitation heading into the early morning hours tomorrow after midnight," WFAA-TV (Channel 8) meteorologist Greg Fields said. "There will be a chance for us to get some freezing rain, a little sleet."
The weather service advisory said while the amount of precipitation will be light, "any ice accumulation will only add to current problems."
Gee, a rolled SUV. What a shock!
And he's not the only one I've seen on the icy roads around here. I don't mind navigating icy roads when there's not much traffic and the others on the road are also cautious. It's because of jerks like this that I don't even bother trying to get into work after an ice storm.
He ain't from around here.
Well...I will be back in the office again on Wednesday as the sole occupant. I told my boss and my employees that they didn't have to come in...same for tomorrow.
I'm out the door.
Did you know they had me put out an Amber Alert out for you on the WFTD thread yesterday when you didn't show up ?...lol.
Thanks !
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
