Snow blankets N. Utah / Storm blamed for power outages, wrecks

Printer Friendly

E-mail This Article

Text bigger | smaller

Bookmark and Share...



Add News Feed to...

What is an RSS feed?

Story Photos

Monday, October 13, 2008  |  1 Comment [ View ]

WILLARD -- Lake-effect snow during the year's first snowstorm was blamed for 25 slide-offs and nearly as many accidents Sunday afternoon on Interstate 15.

The storm also was to blame for outages that left thousands of Top of Utah residents without power for periods of time starting Saturday evening.

"Lake-effect snow hovered and dumped snow from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.," Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Ted Tingey said while talking about traffic mishaps Sunday afternoon.

"The main thing was all speed and the first snowstorm -- people learning how to drive in the snow."

Most accidents were minor, and in many of the slide-offs, people were able to get out themselves, he said.

But I-15's northbound lanes from Pleasant View to Brigham City were closed for two hours Sunday after a major accident resulted in five people being taken to the hospital.

A 22-year-old Salt Lake City woman traveling with a 2-year-old and an infant lost control of her Volkswagon Golf at 3:45 p.m. near Mile Marker 356, Tingey said.

She hit the median cable line that divides the freeway and bounced back into the travel lanes, he said.

As this was occurring, an 18-year-old driver lost control of her Dodge Stratus and slid into the path of the other vehicle. She and her passenger are Utah State University students who were returning to school from Riverton.

The driver of the first vehicle was taken by ambulance to a location away from the worst of the snowstorm, where she was loaded onto a helicopter and taken in critical condition to Ogden Regional Medical Center.

The woman's children were in fair condition and taken by ambulance to the same hospital, Tingey said.

The women in the second vehicle were taken by ambulance to Brigham City Community Hospital in serious condition.

All occupants of both vehicles were wearing seat belts or were in car seats, he said, noting that the impact caused the severity of the injuries.

The early storm also wreaked havoc on some Top of Utah power lines.

But the problems were minimal compared to what they could have been, said Jeff Hymas, a Rocky Mountain Power spokesman.

"Overall, it appears to me that we experienced fewer problems than may have been expected for a snowfall this early in the year with as many leaves as we still have on trees," he said.

"We took several measures to prepare for the storm, knowing that we were going to get snow and that there were leaves on the trees."

Power customers in Tremonton, Garland, Riverside, Bothwell, Thatcher, Blue Creek and Howell were the worst hit in the state Sunday, Hymas said.

There were 4,574 customers without power from 1:52 p.m. to 3:32 p.m. after downed transmission line caused loss of power to four substations.

Hymas reported other power outages in:

* Ogden: Downtown, 589 customers lost power for one hour just after 8 p.m. Saturday. Along the East Bench, 80 customers were without power for 21/2 hours starting at 3:35 a.m. Sunday. In Ogden Canyon, 200 customers were without service for 51/2 hours beginning at 10:03 a.m. Sunday because of branches in power lines.

* Farmington: Saturday, 259 customers were without power for one hour starting at 4:55 p.m. during heavy rain.

* Syracuse: For two hours beginning at 2:10 a.m., 179 customers were without power because of a vehicle accident.

* West Bountiful: 54 customers were affected for 10 hours starting at 6:28 a.m.

* Roy: Two outages left 148 customers without power for several hours.

* Riverdale: 425 customers were without power for nearly five hours starting just before 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

* Hooper: At press time, there was no customer count for the outages that started around 7 p.m. as a result of downed lines.

"We weren't as hard hit as may have been the case if there would have been more snow," Hymas said. "Fortunately, it was relatively light in most neighborhoods."

But there were heavy snows because of lake effects in a few Top of Utah areas.

"Basically, what happened is, there was a band of heavy snow that developed along the Northern Wasatch Front, from Ogden down through Roy, Centerville and that area," said Mike Seaman, a forecaster with the National Weather Service/Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.

He said while most of the Wasatch Front received 1 to 4 inches of snow, some Top of Utah areas got a whole lot more because of the lake effect.

For example, there were reports of 11 inches in both Roy and West Haven and a report of 7 inches in South Ogden.

"The lake effect is problematic because it is so much isolated," Seaman said. "Locations that were underneath that band really got pounded."

He said it is difficult to predict lake-effect snowfalls, but he suspected Sunday that lake-effect snowfalls overnight and this morning would switch to locations farther south than the Top of Utah.

He said snow showers would continue today, but he predicted only a few inches throughout Top of Utah areas.

 1 Comment

Add Your Comment

Name:
Comment:
Security Code:	Type the characters to the left in the box exactly as they appear.
Your IP:	38.103.63.55 This address is recorded for security purposes.

View All »• Local Jobs