Overnight Freezing Rain Caused School Closures, Delays
By Eric M. Weiss and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
3:49 PM
Warmer temperatures this afternoon have melted the slick spots from yesterday's ice storm, hopefully leading to a clearer evening commute.
Pavement temperatures this afternoon were about 8 degrees above freezing, Buck said, enough to prevent most afternoon rain from freezing, said David Buck, a spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration.
"Anytime there's any precipitation there's always an impact because of the amount of congestion in the region," he said. "Temperatures are up fairly high right now, but that can change quickly," he said.
Temperatures rose through the morning and reached nearly 40 degrees downtown by midafternoon, helping the rain from the morning wash away the ice. That rain was becoming lighter through the afternoon and may give way to snow late this evening. The National Weather service said up to an inch of accumulation is possible.
The federal government and most area school systems delayed opening this morning, and schools in Howard and Loudoun counties closed altogether, after freezing rain overnight left roads and sidewalks slick and tens of thousands of homes and business without power.
Arlington, Montgomery, Prince William and Fairfax county schools opened two hours late, along with numerous private schools and universities. D.C. public schools opened on time.
The federal government announced it was putting unscheduled leave policies in effect. Metrorail extended rush hour service by one hour to accommodate commuters coming in later than usual, although customers were not charged rush hour fares.
Some areas west and north of Washington were under an ice storm warning until 1 p.m. Police and highway officials said conditions were definitely improving throughout the morning -- but they remained braced for trouble this afternoon when the mercury falls again.
Early accidents shut down lanes of Interstate 95 near Baltimore and Interstate 70 in Frederick, but were quickly cleared, she said. Montgomery County police reported traffic signal outages throughout Silver Spring and Chevy Chase, as well as trees and wires down. Fairfax County police said there were fewer accidents today than on a normal morning, perhaps because downed trees and slippery conditions were forcing drivers to ease off the accelerator. "It's a mess out there,'' Officer Eddy Azcarate said.
After the two-hour delay, some Fairfax County students wound up stranded at their schools after being dropped off and finding out that the buildings had no power. Officials learned from Dominion Power after 9 a.m. that service might not be restored at some schools until late in the day, said Fairfax schools spokesman Paul Regnier.
By that time, some students were already on the bus headed to school. Students arrived at McLean High and Madison High only to learn that school was cancelled. The school system arranged for buses to come back and pick them up later in the morning, Regnier said. At elementary schools, including Wolftrap Elementary, Flint Hill Elementary and Cunningham Park Elementary in the Vienna area and Braddock Elementary in Annandale, students who were dropped off will be supervised until their parents can pick them up.
Three Montgomery county schools -- Pine Crest Elementary School, Springbook High and Earle B. Wood Middle -- were without power, and after opening late were to close around mid-day.
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.
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