Accidents and Closings Follow Storms

One person died in the Route 28 accident while another was critically injured and transported by helicopter, according to police.

On the outer loop of the Beltway at the Dulles Toll Road, a pickup truck skidded on ice and started spinning in front of a FedEx tandem trailer, which then ran into the pickup and went over a concrete barrier wall, coming to rest on an embankment below, said Sgt. C.J. Plaza, a spokesman for the Virginia State Police. The driver of the FedEx truck was killed on impact, he said. The pickup truck driver was not injured.

The crash left packages from the tandem FedEx trailers scattered over the embankment, and workers were brought in to pick them up.

Plaza said police would have to shut down the ramp below the embankment temporarily to remove the FedEx truck and hoped to complete the work before the evening rush hour. The ramp is the one that takes traffic from the Dulles Toll Road to the northbound lanes of the Beltway, Plaza said.

Officials said there were too many accidents to count during the morning rush hour. Piringer, the spokesman for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue, said there were 40 to 50 accidents between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m.

"The interstate is a dangerous place when roads are dry, let alone when they are wet and freezing," said Sgt. Rob Moroney, a spokesman for the Maryland State Police.

He said practically all the problems on I-270 this morning were in the northbound lanes, which have lighter traffic at that time of day. Heavy morning rush hour traffic in the southbound lanes kept the roadway from freezing, but motorists driving north regularly hit icy patches, he said.

Moroney said police were able to reopen the northbound lanes of I-270 shortly before 8 a.m.

The Virginia Department of Transportation deployed 70 salt trucks in Northern Virginia overnight in anticipation of possible icing, but those preparations were thwarted by the "wildly fluctuating temperatures" and the sudden freeze at rush hour, said Joan Morris, a VDOT spokeswoman.

"No matter how many trucks we had on the road . . . we could not have prevented the flash freeze," she said. "Nothing is worse than ice."

Morris added, "When these things happen during rush hour, it's very difficult to respond adequately or quickly enough."

Closed school systems include those in the counties of Loudoun, Culpeper, Fauquier, Stafford, Madison and Rappahannock in Virginia.

In Virginia, Fairfax and Prince William County schools opened two hours late.

In Maryland, Frederick County schools were closed. Montgomery and Carroll County schools opened two hours late.