Ice Pelts Northeast, Triggering Bridge Closings, Accidents

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NBC News

Icy rain pelted parts of the Northeast on Sunday, triggering dangerous conditions that led to a fatal 60- vehicle pile-up in Pennsylvania, the deaths of six people and the closing of several bridges in the region.

At least one person was killed and 30 other people were injured in the pile-up on Interstate 76 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, state police said. Four more people died in crashes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut because of extremely slick roads. Another 27-vehicle pileup on the Walt Whitman Bridge shut down a major route between New Jersey and Philadelphia.

"I'm pushing my brakes, and my car just started slipping into the cars," Victor Moye, a driver caught in the Montgomery County pile-up, told NBC Philadelphia. "As I hit the car, a car comes behind me and hits me. I'm swinging around four, five times as other cars are hitting that car and hitting me, as well."

Several bridges were shuttered as crews worked to salt the slippery arteries, the Delaware River Port Authority said.

FULL story at link.

Video: http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nightly-news/freezing-rain-causes-deadly-accidents-in-northeast-386013763909




Kaleb Whitby, 27, who miraculously escaped with minor injuries, was sandwiched in his pickup truck between two trailers in the Baker City crash. The photographer, Sergi Karplyuk, helped the man out of his car. Whitby's injuries only required two band-aids and ice.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/ice-pelts-northeast-triggering-bridge-closings-accidents-n288541

[BumRushDaShow]

1. Did not go out anywhere yesterday.

What a nightmare. And then add to it fog too and a ground that had been chilled to the teens Friday night into Saturday morning and temps that didn't get to, or barely hit freezing during the day Saturday before going and back down into the 20s that Saturday night (and that was in the city - it was worse where those accidents occurred N & W of Philly).

[Cha]

3. Stay safe BRDS.. I've experienced ice in the NE before.. dangerous as you know.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Thanks Cha!

I had checked in with my family and everyone cocooned yesterday. It's supposed to get up to 40 today with some breezy conditions so hopefully that plus the salt will dry everything out.... before the next system comes in Wednesday.

[Cha]

5. Now Pennsyvania's getting hit hard! Enjoy the 40 degrees until

Wednesday.

[roguevalley]

8. its balmy here in Alaska.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Persistent ridges over yonder

make persistent troughs here!

[LittleGirl]

2. that guy needs to buy a lottery ticket pronto n/t

[murielm99]

7. Maybe not.

It looks like he used up his lifetime supply of luck at at once.

Wow.

[starroute]

6. It was a major forecasting failure

Beforehand, they were saying at most a brief period of freezing drizzle before everything turned to rain -- and I'm not sure Philadelphia was expected to get even that much. They didn't take into account that because it previously had been so cold, the rain would continue to freeze on roadways even after the air temperature went above freezing. So freezing rain advisories didn't go out overnight, the roads weren't salted before the rush hour, and now people are dead.

[RobinA]

11. Weather Forecasting

is not an exact science. These flash freezes happen here from time to time. I got caught in one once and through an abundance of caution and just damn pure luck made it to my destination unscathed. The intelligent think for me to have done would have been to stop the damn car in a parking lot and wait it out, but nooooo I had to get to my job. A job, incidently, which would not have come close to affording me the money necessary to fix any car damage that ocurred in that mess. My decision to not stop my car when conditions got bad, not the weather man's.

One person I knew was not so lucky and died on that day. That wasn't the weather man's fault either.

[starroute]

12. We're not talking about rocket science here

I follow one of the blogs at Weather Underground that covers my area. The blogger was almost tearing his hair out the night before. The official forecasters knew exactly what was going to happen over the next twelve hours in terms of temperatures and precipitation. The one thing they didn't take account of was that even after air temperatures go above freezing, the roads are going to stay a lot colder for an extended period and any rain is going to freeze on contact.

That's a rookie error. It's why the official call was for a brief period of freezing drizzle followed by all rain -- instead of the several hours of icing that actually occurred. And it wouldn't have occurred if any of them had simply used the sense god gave a goose instead of being mesmerized by their charts and models.

[jakeXT]

10. another lucky guy