Sunday, February 6, 2011

Dangerous Roads

On Friday, the weather here was cold and the roads were covered in ice. The news media was repeating warnings about road conditions and warning people to stay off the roads. Several interstates are closed and most overpasses are closed.

We stayed home. You don't have to remind us how dangerous the roads are.

We live in a hilly area. Our house is located on top of a hill. We live on state highway-66. There was little traffic until around noon. That is when the excitement started. There were cars sliding down the hill sideways. People running off the road into the ditch. A jeep traveling down the road lost control and ran through the ditch and into our neighbors fence. The fence is there to keep cows in the pasture. We watched from our window as more and more people lost control of their cars. At one point we had more cars sideways in the road then those facing the right direction.

There was several semi trucks stuck on the slope of the hill unable to get any traction. That caused a problem for all the cars behind them. The police showed up and shut down the road while the county sand trucks worked for more than a half hour to get the area sanded enough for the semi's to get the needed traction to make it up the hill.

We watch as people stopped and help those stranded people get their cars moving in the right direction. Men in 4x4 trucksstopped and pulled cars out of the ditch. It was upsetting to us to watch the guy that mowed down a portion of our neighbors fence not even stop as he got back on the road and let the fence owner know that he had hit the fence. We had to call and tell them. We wanted to make sure he was aware that his fence was down. We didn't need cows thrown into the mix.

This excitement continued all day. We had to call 911 on two different occasions because the road was so loaded with cars, trucks and people trying to push their vehicles. It was a real mess. This went on until nine p.m.

On Saturday the weather was much better. The temp got up to around 50 degrees. The snow and ice started melting and the traffic was back to normal. We got out and ran a few errands. All the grocery stores in town were running over with people trying to replenish their pantries and get the groceries needed for their SuperBowl parties. Luckily we didn't need anything from any of those stores.
 
The weatherman is predicting more snow tonight and more on Wednesday. This has been a crazy winter here in north Texas. We normally don't even get an inch of snow in the winter.
 
Travel Safe Dawn and Denise