Rising Temperatures Melt Ice, May Bring Evening Snow

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Ice Storm Hits the Metro Area

As voters headed to the polls for the "Potomac Primary" on the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 12, an ice storm struck the area, causing car accidents and pedestrian falls and snarling traffic.

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More than 40,000 customers were without electricity in the region as of 8:30 a.m. today, including about 17,000 in Montgomery County and more than 18,000 in Northern Virginia. By 2 p.m., power had been restored to all but 2,345 customers in Montgomery, 107 in Prince George's and 469 in the District, according to PEPCO's website. But Dominion Virginia Power's site said more than 10,800 customers were still without electricity at midday.

The storm covered much of the Washington region with a sheet of ice late yesterday afternoon, closing major highways, causing dozens of accidents, stranding commuters and causing some would-be voters to miss the polls for the primary elections.

"It's a mess,'' said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller, who said police had 55 accidents to investigate at 8:30 p.m.

The freezing rain started just after 3 p.m., and it didn't take long to create one of the region's most miserable commutes in recent memory, with reports of scores of accidents, the closure of the region's largest highway interchange and motorists stuck for hours on roads that were as slick as a frozen lake.

One motorist left work an hour early to vote and ended up stuck in traffic for two hours; he missed voting by three minutes. For other commuters, icy roads, accidents and closed ramps made trips long and dangerous. There were reports of hours-long backups across the region. Route 50 was backed up from the Bay Bridge to Crofton. A trip from Ashburn to Springfield took 1 1/2 hours. Many of the 50 ramps and bridges of the Springfield interchange, which handles 430,000 vehicles a day, were closed to traffic for hours.

Staff writers Michael Allison Chandler, Daniel deVise, Rosalind S. Helderman, Allison Klein, Michael Laris, Ernesto Londo¿o, Dan Morse, Jonathan Mummolo, Martin Weil, Debbi Wilgoren and Josh Zumbrun contributed to this report.