Commuter hell: Heavy snowstorm brings icy roads, dozens of crashesMarch 8, 2011
A heavy overnight winter storm left Utahns slogging through snow-clogged roads Tuesday, while dozens of weather-related accidents slowed the morning commute to a crawl.
The Utah Highway Patrol reported more than 60 slideoffs and crashes on the state’s slick, snow-packed highways and interstates between midnight and mid-morning. Meanwhile, more than three-dozen weather-related traffic calls kept police dispatchers throughout the Salt Lake Valley hopping.
Rocky Mountain Power crews were out all night restoring service to thousands scattered electrical outages. As morning broke, most of those power failures — including 1,200 in the north Ogden-Pleasant Grove area alone — had been handled.
However, hundreds more Utahns awakened to powerless homes Tuesday, boosting the total to more than 2,000 active outages by 7:30 a.m. Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen said most of the outages were due to heavy snow on drooping or breaking tree limbs affecting nearby power lines.
“The outages are pretty scattered throughout mostly the Salt Lake Valley this morning,” Eskelsen said. “Our single largest remaining outage was about 375 customers in the Holladay area.”
Snowfall totals easily exceeded forecasters’ predictions for the storm. The National Weather Service, which had expected a few inches to blanket the valleys, was recording depths of 8-12 inches. Mountain totals were being measured not in mere inches but feet.
Ski Utah reported that 21 inches of new snow was on the slopes at the Eagle Point resort, while Alta and Brighton resorts measured 20 inches each. Snowbird, Solitude and Brian Head recorded new snow totals as of Tuesday morning of 18, 17 and 17 inches, respectively, and Park City Mountain and Powder Mountain records came in with a foot of new powder each.
The Utah Avalanche Center put the risk of potentially deadly backcountry snowslides at “considerable” for the Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake, Manti-Skyline and Western Uinta districts, while the Moab district was rated “moderate” for avalanche danger.
Indeed, the heavy snowfall overnight made the task of Wasatch County search and rescue crews even more difficult as they resumed looking for two missing snowmobilers Tuesday morning. The search for the men, ages 27 and 24, focused on the Lake Creek trailhead area about 10 miles southeast of Heber, had initially begun Monday morning but had to be suspended late Monday night as the storm system moved in.
Little Cottonwood Canyon was ordered closed Tuesday morning until 8:30 a.m. for avalanche control work, while Big Cottonwood Canyon was restricted to four-wheel drive or chained vehicles.
Chains and four-wheel drive restrictions also were in place for Interstate 70 from Millard to Beaver counties and northern Utah’s Sardine Canyon. State Road 143 from Brian Head to Mammoth Creek Road in Iron County was closed with not estimate for when it would reopen.
