Always keep the tank full...
Always keep the tank full...
19-mile jam clears up on I-90 in Wis.
February 7, 2008
FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
MILWAUKEE ? Traffic started returning to normal Thursday after hundreds of motorists were caught in a massive traffic jam on Interstate 90 during a storm that dumped some 20 inches of windblown snow in southern Wisconsin, closing schools, bus service and airports across the region.
The backup which started Wednesday afternoon during the height of the storm which began Tuesday afternoon involved as many as 800 vehicles before vehicles started moving steadily Thursday morning.
??In some cases, the drivers seemed to have given up and gone to sleep,?? said Wisconsin National Guard Lt. Col. Tim Donovan, whose agency was activated to help.
??We?ve been going out knocking on cars, waking them up and getting people moving,?? said Lori Getter, Wisconsin Emergency Management spokeswoman.
The big backup on the westbound lanes of the interstate began when semitrailer trucks lost traction and got stuck on a small hill. It gradually grew to stretch 19 miles.
Gov. Jim Doyle called a state of emergency in Dane and Rock counties so that National Guard troops could be sent in to help. Snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles were used to check on stranded motorists and bring them food or fuel.
There were no injuries reported, only minor medical conditions that needed attention, Donovan said.
Peter Freeman, 29, left his restaurant in Janesville about 1 p.m. Wednesday for his home 25 miles away in Stoughton. Traffic stopped out of the blue, he said.
He sat in his minivan for hours waiting, listening to the radio and watching a movie on its DVD player. He had no food or water, but people in a car in front of him eventually gave him a sandwich and soda.
Emergency workers on snowmobiles came by asking whether he was OK, but they had little information about the backup, Freeman said.
??They told us to be single file and turn on our headlights and then off they went. There was no offer of food, water or blankets. Nothing,?? he said. ??I don?t think the National Guard ever assembled and made it out there.??
When traffic started moving about 11 p.m. last night, Freeman?s minivan got stuck on an exit ramp near his home and he spent another half-hour shoveling himself out. Forced to take back roads to his home in Stoughton, he finally arrived home just before 1 a.m.
Evrod Cassimy, 23, spent about 11 hours stuck on the interstate after heading for work in Madison at NBC affiliate WMTV-TV.
??I was panicked. I was a wreck,?? Cassimy said. ??Once 5 hours passes, you think, ???Oh my gosh, I could die here. I have no where to go, you don?t know where you are.???
Cassimy had about one-half of a tank of gas and started his car in intervals to keep warm. His lunch was in the back seat, but he had brought a frozen dinner. He said he called 911 three times because he wondered when someone was coming to help.
The National Weather Service said Thursday its preliminary figures put the highest accumulations at 21 inches at Orfordville and near Beloit, 20.1 at Saukville, 20 near Evansville and at Jackson, 18 at Glendale, 17.1 at Beaver Dam and 16.5 near Sun Prairie.
Other totals included Janesville 16 inches, Watertown, 14.5, Sheboygan 14, Madison 13.3 and Milwaukee 11.5.
Temperatures in the area affected by the snow storm reached highs in the high 20s to the low 30s Wednesday, then dropped overnight to a range from the low 20s throughout the southeast to 5 below at Lone Rock in the southwest.
Visibility was so poor in Green County on Wednesday that snow plow operators were called off the roads for several hours in the afternoon, :shrug: county highway commissioner Dallas Cecil said.
??The winds are blowing so hard the guys can?t see the front of their trucks,?? he said at the time.
As the snow kept falling, a few people cross country skied on sidewalks outside the state Capitol building in Madison.
General Mitchell International Airport at Milwaukee stopped all flights Wednesday afternoon due to whiteout conditions. More than 100 people spent the night in the concourses, airport spokesman Ryan McAdams said. Air traffic resumed at 7 a.m. Thursday, although McAdams said delays were expected.
Two traffic fatalities were blamed on the storm. A 51-year-old man died when he lost control of his car on a slick portion of Interstate 94 and slid in front of a semitrailer in Milwaukee County. A 59-year-old Oak Creek man died when his pickup truck crashed into a pole in Milwaukee.
Authorities throughout the state discouraged people from traveling, and hundreds of schools and businesses across southern Wisconsin closed.
The Milwaukee County Transit System suspended bus service Wednesday evening after 23 buses carrying passengers became stuck in snow. Service resumed Thursday morning.
A semitrailer jackknifed about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday on Interstate 43 in Sheboygan County, just a mile north of Oostburg. The crash caused at least 30 vehicles to stop, State Patrol Lt. Nick Scorcio said. Some became stuck in snow or ditches. There were no injuries.
More than 4,500 WE Energies customers lost power in scattered outages during the day, spokesman Brian Manthey said.
Occasional brief periods of blizzard-like conditions developed Wednesday along the Lake Michigan shoreline from Milwaukee to Kenosha, said meteorologist Rusty Kapela of the National Weather Service?s Sullivan office.
. The officer was cool, he said I know, sorry but I have to come and make a report. The pile at the ends of my driveways are 10' high :wall: 
