Accidents and Closings Follow Storms
Havoc Across Region's Major Highways

By Fred Barbash and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 16, 2005 1:33 PM

Icy roads west of Washington made this morning one of the worst days in recent memory on area highways.

There were scores of accidents, 50 or 60 in Montgomery County alone, and more in Virginia. Two were fatal.

Late in the morning, three vehicles -- a tractor-trailer, a van and a Montgomery County Ride On bus -- were involved in an accident in the Germantown area that injured six people, three of them seriously, said Pete Piringer, a spokesman for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue. Three people were trapped for a time in their vehicles before rescue workers freed them, including the driver of the bus, which was not carrying any passengers, Piringer said. He said a witness indicated that weather was not a factor in the crash.

Piringer said the accident occurred about 10:45 a.m. at the intersection of Ridge Road and Brink Road. A dozen fire and rescue units and two medical evacuation helicopters went to the scene to transport victims to hospitals, he said.

The injured included all five of the people in the van, two of whom were seriously hurt. One has life-threatening injuries, Piringer said. The bus driver also sustained serious injuries. The driver of the tractor trailer was unhurt.

Earlier this morning, every major interstate closed at one point or another, including parts of Interstate-270 from the Beltway to Frederick and beyond; parts of Interstate-66 from the Beltway westward; the Dulles Toll Road; parts of Route 355 in Maryland; the George Washington Parkway and Beach Drive.

And, of course, lots of schools opened late or simply closed for the day.

The traffic accidents occurred when temperatures took an unexpected drop below freezing early in the morning, catching motorists and road crews by surprise. The result was the worst possible road scenario -- black ice in the dark.

Chuck Gischlar, spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration, said forecasts called for temperatures 36 degrees and above. But north of Route 370 in Montgomery County, that didn't hold.

While trucks had been sent home loaded with chemicals for treating the roads, the highways to the north were frozen by 5 a.m., and rush hour traffic was building.

The worst of it in Maryland was on I-270 from Gaithersburg north, where there were numerous spinouts, a jackknifed truck and immobilized vehicles in the northbound lanes, compounded by rubbernecking in the southbound lanes, Gischlar said. At one point, traffic was backed up all the way to Frederick.

Virginia highways were experiencing the same freeze, setting off a chain of accidents that claimed two lives, one on Route 28 at Compton Road, according to Prince William County police, and another where the Beltway meets the Dulles Toll Road.

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.