Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

Related Photos

  • Douglas Tesner

    Iced Roads

  • Douglas Tesner

    Iced Roads
November 28, 2007

Region slips and slides into another winter

GT road commission criticized for response to storms

and Brian McGillivary

TRAVERSE CITY -- Mary Gillis fielded a host of angry calls after a morning storm turned Grand Traverse County roads into a serpentine skating rink.

Some were more pointed than others.

"I think someone wanted to hang me this morning," said Gillis, manager of the Grand Traverse County Road Commission.

Motorists aren't pleased with the road commission's efforts after two initial wintery blasts. A Thanksgiving storm caught the road commission short-handed, left county roads a mess and drivers grumbling throughout the holiday.

Tuesday's storm -- snow, freezing rain, high winds -- didn't improve drivers' outlook.

"I think Grand Traverse County is the worst," said local resident Mary Francis after a hair-raising Tuesday morning commute. "I'm always so frightened when I hit the county line."

Francis said Cedar Run Road is one of the most treacherous roads she's ever driven and Tuesday morning it was a solid sheet of ice that turned a seven-mile commute into a 70-minute ordeal.

Cathi Wakeman said her trip from Cedar in Leelanau County to Traverse City along M-72 proved especially terrifying.

"The roads were horrible. It took me an hour to get here and it usually takes me 25 minutes," Wakeman said. "I didn't see any (plow) trucks on my way in at all. I was surprised. There was no salt and no sand."

Traverse City resident Kevin Hanley braved cold gusts Tuesday afternoon while delivering UPS packages to Union Street businesses with co-worker Charlie Willour, of Interlochen.

"Even the main roads have been covered all day. There is not a lot of maintenance on them at all," Hanley said as a plow truck passed by. "That's the first truck I saw today."

Bad combinations

Area road officials said they had full crews out Tuesday, but blamed bad roads on a combination of blowing snow, bad timing and warm surfaces that turned snow into ice.

"It came in fast and froze up in less than an hour," said Leelanau County Road Commission Manager Herb Cradduck. "It takes a while to get over almost 700 miles of roads."

Gillis said drivers often suggest the commission pretreat roads. Workers will do so when she's 100 percent sure the storm will arrive and do so on time.

"If the snow doesn't happen or it arrives at eight instead of seven the material gets kicked off the road (by traffic) and it's a waste of labor and materials and we don't have that kind of budget to play with," Gillis said.

Early storms are always hard to address because warm pavement melts snow and the cold air freezes it, creating an unpredictable, yet repetitive cycle.

"Having an inch of snow that turns into ice is worse than having 12 inches of snow on frozen ground that we can plow," Gillis said.

The region received between one and three inches of snow blown by very strong wind gusts that coated already wet roads, said meteorologist Scott Rozanski of the National Weather Service's Gaylord office.

Temperatures in the 20s are expected throughout the week, Rozanski said, and on-and-off snow showers are expected.

"It just seems like wind-blown snow is always a lot more hazardous to drive on than snow that just falls," he said.

Burt Thompson, engineer-manager for the Antrim County Road Commission, said snow in windy conditions will blow right across frozen pavement. But because the road is warm, the blowing snow sticks and turns to ice.

Downed trees and power lines from high winds also slowed Antrim crews, he said.

Bob Cole, Traverse City's director of public services, said timing played a critical role Tuesday because the snow began at the start of the morning rush hour. He called in crews once the snow arrived, but the first trucks didn't hit the road until 7:30 a.m.

"We can't afford to have crews standing around here waiting for it to snow," Cole said.

Gillis had crews out earlier, but said it can take a truck two-to-three hours to complete its route.

Getting 'slammed'

Grand Traverse County sheriff's deputies responded to dozens of traffic-related calls over the Thanksgiving weekend and Tuesday's total was up to 22 before 9:40 a.m., Undersheriff Nathan Alger said.

"For the road conditions we experienced this morning, that was not unusual," Alger said. "We handled 83 accidents over the holiday weekend. That is a lot of accidents, but I don't think that it's out of line with past years."

Jamel Anderson, director of Grand Traverse County's central dispatch center, said calls have poured in since the snow started to fly on the eve of Thanksgiving.

"Really, we get slammed no matter what when the roads are icy ... especially early in the season," she said.

Officials blamed Grand Traverse County's Thanksgiving mess on poor management.

The road commission was short eight drivers who'd left town for deer hunting and the holiday, Gillis said.

It wasn't huge, but it was enough to affect service," Gillis said. "We're going to be addressing it."

Workers at Traverse City-based Ward Eaton Towing said they've noticed a difference in both volume of business and road conditions early this season. The company fielded more than 100 calls for service on Black Friday and Tuesday's numbers likely would be similar, said office manager Becky Whiteford.

"It seems more icy than usual, definitely," Whiteford said. "This morning barely anything was salted or sanded or anything."

Road conditions were "pretty slippery" in Benzie County, but dispatchers at the sheriff's department haven't received many traffic-related calls in the past week, communications director Lori Commins said.

"I think we have had like three accidents. Nobody has called to say our roads are bad or anything," she said. "From what people have told me it was pretty quiet over the weekend, unlike Grand Traverse."

Staff writer Art Bukowski contributed to this story.

Text Only