2/22-24 Winter Weather Thread
- Thread starter Trice
- Start date
Drove home from Kansas City yesterday. To Des Moines it was perfect. From Ankeny to Ames was tolerable if you slow down and drive according to the conditions. There are a lot of people out there that should not have a license to drive an automobile on public roads. Saw some amazing ****.
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Not like this stuff has never happened before. Picture is from atop my dad's gas truck in snow drifts outside of Manchester, Iowa in early March 1959, 60th anniversary of that storm. It is either Hwy 20 or Hwy 13, leaning towards Hwy 20.
The DOT is directing semis to park at the Hilton lots, Jordan Creek or Prairie Meadows until 35 is opened north of Ames.
I was going to call the doctor's office to reschedule my appointment from this morning. They called first, doc is stuck in Ames.
I feel like we’ve hit the point where the DOT is being ridiculous. Maybe it is exponentially worse north of Ames or something but I think they are being overly proactive and cautious with this. Heck when we drove up to Ames for wrestling yesterday the metro was still supposedly travel not advised when it probably should have been normal winter driving conditions. I’m all for keeping everyone safe but we live in Iowa.
Drive to work today...local streets might be the worst I’ve seen after a snow storm. So much ice pack
Agreed. I took 69 between Huxley and Ames. The DOT's label of "partially covered" was rather generous.
Still looks pretty **** north of Ames, this is the plow cam from just north of Story City at 7:30 this morning.
https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/multiple-vehicle-pile-up-in-neenah-closes-i-41-southbound-lanes
71 injured, 1 killed in a 130 car pileup in WI.
71 injured, 1 killed in a 130 car pileup in WI.
It has always been my opinion that the road "grades" were usually at least one level worse than what they actually are. My assumption is that they err on the side of caution and trying to limit the number of people out which would make it worse.
As far as 35 goes today I think they are being smart to keep it closed until it is 100% ready. They said that all ramps and the Eklhart rest stop are over capacity so as soon as they open it up it will be solid semi's for hours. I would expect they likely won't open it up until they feel good about the section up to Mason City/Clear Lake or maybe even the whole stretch.
You mean by closing it in the first place, or keeping it closed this morning? I saw a video from yesterday (perhaps it is posted earlier in this thread) that was around the Highway 210/Huxley exit and it looked like a total disaster, and that stretch of interstate is south of the worst-hit area. There were quite a few cars lined up along the barrier cables. I can only imagine the ditches north of Ames to be littered with them.
I imagine the fear of incidents like that huge pile up in Ames from last winter weighs pretty heavily on their minds when making these decisions. It's not always the road conditions themselves but the danger of what might happen when accidents pile up, people stop to help, and so on.
Keeping it closed this morning. The accidents by Huxley were pretty much cleared last night. When we drove back from Ames last night it wasn’t a fun drive but more than doable. Maybe the other person is right that they want to get it back to 100% normal before opening it up. I worry about the backup getting worse than it already is. Maybe they are past the point that it is worth it to try and slowly get people moving. I know that the rest area there was to the point it was extremely dangerous. They had trucks parked on the interstate.
Yeah, it's not even close to safe yet. Look at some plow cams on the 511 website to get a better idea of how bad it is.
You mean them closing it so they can get it cleaned off properly so they don't have the pile ups like the last few years from dumb drivers, is ridiculous? North of Ames is a disaster. The snow plow cams I've seen by the MN border look horrible. Might want to hold off on the criticism until you've actually seen the conditions where its closed.
Right, but the Ames to Des Moines stretch was probably significantly better than the northern Iowa stretch. Plus, I don't recall for sure but I'm guessing there are fewer cable barriers up there which means more cars actually in the ditch, which means more time/difficulty in getting them out. The tweet below shows that road conditions themselves still suck, let alone all the work they have to do to clear cars. I'm sure they last thing they want is to close one of the US's most important routes, let alone keep it closed for one minute longer than necessary.
It was north of Ames that was closed. I suspect that they closed it at ames because of logistics. If you drove from Des Moines to ames, you did not drive north of ames.
Just looking at the cameras shows how bad it was and in some places still is.
If anybody thinks the state is being too harsh on road conditions, just come up here, roads arent great and havent been for 36 hours or so.
