Pictured: A person walks across the intersection of 9th Street and Lafayette Avenue on Friday after a snowstorm in Columbus. Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Bartholomew County Emergency Management lowered the county’s travel status to a “watch level” Friday, opening up “essential” travel as area residents began digging out of a two-day winter storm.
The decision allows travel on county roads and Columbus streets, although emergency management officials asked motorists not to travel unless it was absolutely necessary as road crews continued to work to clear a thick coat of ice covered in several inches of snow from roads. Those who decide to travel should allow extra time and use caution, officials said.
They also cautioned that Friday’s night’s extremely cold temperatures could cause roadways to ice over again, making travel treacherous this morning.
A “watch” travel advisory means conditions are threatening to the safety of the public. During a “watch” local travel advisory, only essential travel, such as to and from work or in emergency situations, is recommended, and emergency action plans should be implemented by businesses, schools, government agencies, and other organizations.
City and county road crews were able to make substantial progress starting early Friday morning, including getting to some secondary roadways — though the morning’s snowfall did set back work somewhat.
Indiana State Police were seeing some clear pavement on I-65 in Bartholomew and Jackson counties but asked motorists to refrain from traveling as there were fears Friday’s low temperatures would cause refreezing and create more ice on the interstate.
Bartholomew County sheriff deputies and Columbus police reported 20 slide-off accidents on Thursday into Friday when the most precipitation, in the form of ice and snow, was falling, and continued into the overnight hours.
As far as driving conditions went, Department of Public Works Director Bryan Burton said that the main roads were fine on Friday and “getting better as the day goes on,” though he still advised drivers to be careful.
“Now, if you turn off of a main road onto a side street, you still have to use caution because there’s still some wind rolls and stuff and that’s where we’re seeing a lot of cars getting hung up,” he said. “So they’re seeing some deep spots out there, but it’s not so much that it’s slick, it’s just the snow’s kind of deep, and the cars are getting hung up on that.”
Burton said that the switch to snow on Thursday helped with traction somewhat for Department of Public Works employees, but the deeper the snowfall, the more difficult it was to move around and clear the roads.
“So we’re just continuing to work on that,” he said Friday. “When we get an amount of snow like this, it does make it a little bit more of a challenge and time-consuming. … The downtown area, like Washington Street, we have to actually pile it up and then haul it away.”
The department got to work early Friday morning and started by focusing on the main roads. At first, they were able to get these cleared and in good shape, but then another round of snowfall came.
“It wasn’t much, but it was enough to cover the roads up again, that we had to concentrate on the main roads again,” said Burton. He estimated that the snow stopped between about 9:30 and 10 a.m.
Workers were preparing to start on interior streets late Friday morning. Burton expected that the main roads would be good by that evening, with most “down to pavement.” City workers hoped to be through most, if not all, streets by late Friday or early today. He didn’t foresee them being out over the weekend, with the exception of some possible touch-ups in the morning.
The main county roads such as East 25th St., North Marr Road and Southern Crossing were mostly wet and shouldn’t provide problems for drivers during daylight hours, Bartholomew County Highway engineer Danny Hollander said Friday.
“We’ve been hitting those main roads the most,” Hollander said.
But with overnight lows and wind chills expected to drop below zero, he warned that even the clearest roads in the county will likely refreeze.
“Most of the roads have been hit once (with a snow plow), but we are still not down to pavement” Hollander said, citing the thick layer of ice that formed Wednesday night and Thursday morning before the snow began early Thursday afternoon.
“You can drive them, but you need to go slow and use common sense,” the engineer said. “That layer of ice is still keeping conditions very slick.”
County drivers will still find a thin layer of snow on top of most county roads and should continue to use extra caution, he said.
County crews began their workday at 3 a.m. Friday, but almost 12 hours later, the condition of the more than 700 miles of rural roads varied tremendously, Hollander said. He added that most of the workers driving plows are expected to continue plowing until well after sundown Friday.
The town of Hope had three vehicle slide-offs from Wednesday night through Friday morning, Hope Town Marshal Matt Tallent said.
With a full-time police department of three, as well as six reserve officers, Hope has maintained around-the-clock-shifts since Wednesday, he said. As of Friday afternoon Tallent said most of the streets in Hope had been cleared of snow. He expressed optimism that driving conditions would be back to near-normal sometime Saturday afternoon.
