Officials Say Hands Were Tied By Storm
AAA Highly Critical Of Snow Response

By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 7, 2007

The Washington region's leading advocate for motorists blasted transportation officials yesterday for failing to clear roadways during the season's first snowstorm Wednesday, while Maryland and Virginia officials said efforts to treat roads were impeded because the storm hit during the morning rush.

Despite minimal snow predicted well in advance, the storm resulted in traffic accidents and delays "among the worst any can remember," said Mahlon G. "Lon" Anderson, director of public and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Although finger-pointing after a snowstorm is a virtual tradition in the Washington area, "there is near-unanimous agreement by those who drove [Wednesday morning] that whatever efforts were made missed the mark completely," Anderson said. He and other commuters reported seeing spinouts and collisions, including on the Capital Beltway and Interstate 95.

Few state or local transportation officials took responsibility for the slick roads, and some blamed weather forecasters. They said there is only so much they can do when snow and below-freezing temperatures strike during rush hour.

"The timing of the snow, along with the rush hour, is really the worst-case scenario," said Valerie Burnette Edgar, a spokeswoman for the Maryland State Highway Administration. "There are circumstances that don't allow for the most clear pavement in the middle of rush hour."

D.C. transportation officials said they are turning to a new product made of beet juice, hoping to use it before and during storms to keep ice and snow off streets. The product, known commercially as GeoMelt, has been used in other cities, including Akron, Ohio.

Officials there said they had good success in about a dozen instances last year using a mixture of a small amount of beet juice with salt and magnesium chloride. The beet juice lowers the temperature at which salt can melt snow.

In the District, officials treated bridges and overpasses with a brine solution before the storm, but Maryland and Virginia officials generally do not do that because the chemicals blow away or evaporate with all the friction from traffic.

Dave Buck, a spokesman for the Maryland highway administration, said: "When it's hovering around freezing, that's not the time to do that. It can cause slick roads. . . . You can cause much, much slicker conditions."

State officials said they don't have a good solution for storms that hit at rush hour, because crews get stuck in traffic along with everyone else. Officials said they wait until the first precipitation to apply the salt and magnesium chloride so they will stick. Virginia trucks were largely ready at 4 a.m. but waited.

Neither Maryland nor Virginia officials said they were planning to experiment with other substances to treat roads before storms because of concerns about safety and costs.

"Some of these other chemicals are not 100 percent proven, and there is a safety risk that some products can draw moisture," said Albert Rollins, who is in charge of interstate maintenance for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Buck, the Maryland highway official, said: "There is no magical solution we can put down prior to a snowstorm happening that can completely prevent snow from sticking to a frozen surface."

The District's transportation director, Emeka C. Moneme, said that the city consults a variety of weather forecasts and that officials believed that only a half-inch to an inch of snow would fall. He said forecasts indicated only a 20 percent chance that the city would receive two inches.

Referring to the uncertainty of weather forecasting, he quipped: "From now on, I'm going to call my parents in Ohio, because whatever they get, we get 12 hours later."

As the snowfall exceeded expectations, the D.C. department needed more personnel and "was slower in getting to the residential streets than we wanted to be," Moneme said. Some residential streets were not plowed or salted overnight or early yesterday, leaving drivers slipping and sliding.

According to the National Weather Service, the Washington region received 1.5 to 4.5 inches of snow, with up to 3 inches in some parts of Northwest Washington, 3.6 inches in Reston and 4.5 inches in Olney.

Jim Lee, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, disputed the District's account. He said an advisory issued more than 24 hours before the first flake fell called for one to two inches of snow. At 2:49 a.m. Wednesday, the service updated its forecast to extend the duration of the storm to 8 p.m. And at 9:44 a.m. Wednesday, it raised the predicted accumulation totals to one to three inches for most of the region, with as much as two to four inches in the northern suburbs.

Flurries were reported at Reagan National Airport at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. Even though the first measurable accumulation was not recorded until between 10 and 11 a.m. at the airport, Lee said, "the flurries became ice when they hit, and that caused traffic delays."

Staff writers Michael Laris and Nikita Stewart and researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.