Quincy Digs Out

3 months ago

Road crews have worked around the clock to prepare roads for the day

Heavy snowfall blanketed the Tri-States Thursday. Some in the area even got their first taste of “thunder snow.”  Snow started to fall just before noon and came down heavy and quick for a good portion of the day.

Schools and many businesses across the area closed early. Most schools are closed once again today. You can find the updated list of closings and cancellations here.

Travel became difficult shortly thereafter as snow plow drivers could only hit the main roads and even then, could barely keep up.

Continuous snowfall made heavily travelled roads in Illinois such as IL 57, IL 172 and IL 72 impassable in some places.

“It was a little bit quieter overnight than what we had yesterday afternoon," said ISP Trooper Mike Kindhart. "The road crews have done a great job. We have heard, however, a lot of our country roads have seen a lot of drifting and roads are not completely cleared out in those areas.”
 
Kindhart said crews are waiting for the salt to do its job and melt the snow and ice.
“The salt has really not kicked in and taken over to be able to do anything. Of course we’ve had no sunshine," he said. "There are still scattered slick spots, they’re still snow covered but it’s down to the roadway. It’s still extremely difficult to get around and now looking into black ice later on.”
 
Director of Quincy Central Services Marty Stegeman said major roads are passable, but it will be several more hours before secondary routes are cleared.
 
“Hopefully through the day, the material we’re putting on the roads and a dozen trucks out we’ll knock it out as best we can,” Stegeman said.
 
He also said that the biggest problem has been the snow plow cast off "which is where the snow is thrown off the plow blade into the middle of the intersection. It’s why we have drive ways that get blocked and there’s really no control over it. Until we can get all of those knocked back. Other than the primary intersections and snow emergency routes. I would suggest people be very cautious in all of them.”

Adams County 911 processed 263 weather related incidents, Quincy Police Department handled 225 weather related incidents and the Adams County Sheriff's Department handled 38 incidents.

The City of Quincy declared a snow emergency late yesterday. All vehicles must be kept off the snow emergency routes so crews can plow. That remains in effect until further notice.

And close to 900 Ameren Illinois customers found themselves without power for a period of time Thursday evening.

In Missouri, U.S. 61 was shut down in two different places for several hours after separate tractor-trailers jack-knifed. Traffic was also slowed to a stop for a while as it came off the Mark Twain Bridge near Hannibal during the early afternoon hours. Some drivers reported a delay of up to three hours

All of those roads re-opened early yesterday evening.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency early Thursday. He also activated the Missouri State Emergency Operations Plan. That allows state agencies to coordinate directly with local jurisdictions to provide emergency services.