Snow/Sleet Storm Creates Beautiful Scenery And Hazardous Roadways

By Andrew Gorosko

The snow and sleet that fell on Newtown Tuesday posed hazardous travel conditions for motorists who ventured onto the 265 linear miles of local roads which, by turns, were snowy and icy as the day progressed.

About seven inches of snow, interspersed with sleet, fell on central Newtown.

Town police responded to 19 motor vehicle accidents between 9 am and 4:40 pm, of which five accidents involved injuries. Many of those 19 collisions occurred between 9 and 10 am, and then between 12:30 and 2:15 pm.

Police reported accidents on South Main Street, Philo Curtis Road, Berkshire Road, Toddy Hill Road, Huntingtown Road, Boggs Hill Road, Main Street, Mt Pleasant Road, New Lebbon Road, Ethan Allen Road, Commerce Road, Bennetts Bridge Road, High Bridge Road, and The Boulevard.

Police received reports of 11 disabled vehicles on local roads between 9 am and 10 pm.

One of the more dramatic motor vehicle accidents that occurred involved a large laundry van that went out of control on a snowy/icy Toddy Hill Road about 9:02 am and then crashed squarely into a tree along the right road shoulder.

That accident trapped the driver in his seat, requiring Sandy Hook and Botsford firefighters to free the man from the wreckage.

Police said Carl Tomlin, 23, of Bridgeport was driving a 1997 GMC van owned by UniFirst Corp of Stratford northward near 47 Toddy Hill Road, when the large vehicle slid to the right on the icy/snowy road and struck a tree. That accident closed that section of Toddy Hill Road to through-traffic for about one hour.

The impact of the crash pinned Tomlin into the driver’s seat of the truck, said Sandy Hook Fire Chief Bill Halstead.

Firefighters came to Tomlin’s aid from both inside the truck and also through the vehicle’s front windshield, Chief Halstead said.

The forceful impact of the crash caused the position of the dashboard and the steering wheel to change, trapping Tomlin’s legs.

To free Tomlin from the van, firefighters used power tools to disconnect the driver’s seat from its mountings and also remove an engine cowl from the truck’s interior.

Chief Halstead said that Tomlin was conscious and alert during the extrication and did not appear to be seriously injured. Ambulance volunteers later transported Tomlin to Danbury Hospital where he was treated and then released. Police issued Tomlin a written warning for traveling unreasonably fast.

At 9:43 pm, about one mile south of the van accident, Botsford firefighters responded to another motor vehicle accident at 109 Toddy Hill Road.

And then at 9:49 am, Sandy Hook firefighters responded to another accident on Berkshire Road, near Pole Bridge Road.

Soon thereafter, at 10:05 am, Botsford firefighters responded to a one-vehicle collision on Huntingtown Road, near the Orchard Hill Nature Center.

Police Sergeant Darlene Froehlich said that the high volume of motor vehicle accident calls on Tuesday made for a “chaotic” day.

A burst of accident calls midmorning was followed by a lull, after which the number of accident calls increased in the afternoon, she said.

Additionally, due to weather-related problems on Interstate 84, some traffic from I-84 was routed onto local roads, compounding traffic flow problems locally, she said.

At 12:54 pm, Hawleyville and Hook & Ladder firefighters responded to a report of an accident involving a jackknifed tractor-trailer truck on westbound I-84, west of Exit 9.

Because local schools were in session on Tuesday, it resulted in more traffic on the roads than if school had been called off for the day, Sgt Froehlich said. School officials delayed the start of school on Tuesday by 90 minutes due to weather conditions.

The sleet that caused local roads to become icy made for the hazardous driving, she said.

Due to the high volume of traffic accidents, police had some members of their second shift report to work early to help handle the accident workload, she said.

Fred Hurley, town director of public works, said that the town used 304 cubic yards of road sand and used 359 tons of road salt for snow/ice removal in the storm cleanup.

The town mixes road sand and road salt in an approximate 1-to-1 ratio for snow/ice removal, he said.

So far for snow/ice removal this winter, the town has used 3,580 cubic yards of road sand and 4,169 tons of road salt, he said. The storm on Tuesday required the third-greatest application of sand and salt this winter, he said.

Mr Hurley noted that driving conditions were generally “sloppy” during the day, adding that much of the snow fell after people already were traveling on the roads.

Considering that the periods of snowfall were mixed with some sleet, it made for conditions in which pavement becomes “very slick,” he said.

Town road crew members worked on snow removal from about 3 am Tuesday until late that night, Mr Hurley said. “It [storm] hung on top of us for a very long period of time,” he said.

Mr Hurley said that if it had been his decision, he would have canceled local school on Tuesday.

Mr Hurley explained that rather than using a given weather forecast for snow/ice control guidance, the public works department monitors several weather information websites on the Internet to develop a realistic sense of the type of weather conditions that the town likely can expect to experience during a storm.

Staff members monitor weather radar data for areas from which a storm is progressing toward Newtown to get a sense what weather conditions can be expected locally, he said.