A winter storm that hit the D.C. region with sleet and freezing rain created icy road conditions that led to some early morning crashes and school closings Monday morning as the work week began.
By 5 a.m., Montgomery, Howard and Arlington County school officials had closed their districts for the day. Loudoun, Fairfax, Prince William and Fauquier counties announced Sunday they were going to close. Federal government offices, D.C. schools and the D.C. city government are opening two hours late.
The bad weather didn’t stop President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, former president George W. Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, from boarding Air Force One at a foggy Joint Base Andrews for a flight to South Africa to attend memorial events for Nelson Mandela.
[Check closings in the D.C. region.]
Several inches of snow accumulated in the western and northern parts of the region. Closer to the District, the wintry mix that started Sunday changed from snow to freezing rain before ending in the afternoon.
But Monday morning, roads were still slick in some areas as temperatures hovered just above freezing before the precipitation turned to rain. Local highway and police officials reminded drivers to slow down as they commute to work and elsewhere.
Early Monday morning, an overturned tractor trailer full of tires caused some lanes on the outer loop of the Beltway at Chain Bridge Road near Tysons Corner to temporarily close. Just after 8 a.m., authorities said the Beltway’s southbound lanes had reopened from the earlier incident.
In some neighborhoods, trees weighed down by ice fell onto power lines and onto streets. Police warned drivers to use caution, especially on side streets.
Many area road crews worked extended hours overnight to deal with the icy highways and side streets. The region’s traffic officials said they hoped a window of dry weather before things turn for the worse Monday night would allow them to rest workers that have been on the job for 24 hours. Weather forecasters are predicting a 30 to 40 percent chance of snow and sleet Monday night in some parts of the region.
“As far as crews, we will get them home to rest, assuming the forecast remains,” said Valerie Burnette Edgar of Maryland’s State Highway Administration. “Generally we keep some folks (or contractors) in [service].”
On Metro, rail lines were operating with no delays and Metrobus routes were also running as planned on Monday morning. There were some delays on VRE lines coming from Fredericksburg because of downed trees.
Power companies reported outages because of the storm. In Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, about 10,100 customers were in the dark. About 79,000 customers in Northern Virginia and about 2,600 in D.C. were without power, according to utility companies.
[See the latest on live power outage numbers in the D.C. region.]
Airports around the country reported mostly smooth operations Monday morning.
At airports in the Washington area, more than 30 flights were delayed early Monday morning at Dulles International and more than a dozen were late at Baltimore Washington International. Planes bound for Reagan National Airport were told to postpone their departures from other cities until 8 a.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment