Dangerous road conditions could affect Richmond for days

Freezing temperatures, possible flurries today and rain later in the week could mean dangerous driving conditions through Christmas.

Virginia Department of Transportation crews will continue to work around the clock today and tomorrow to clear roads, but officials are concerned about the cold and the possibility of more snow, said Britt Drewes, a VDOT spokeswoman.

The National Weather Service said central Virginia could see flurries this morning, although accumulation is unlikely. Today's high is expected to reach the mid- or upper 30s.

As of midday yesterday, most of Virginia's interstates had been cleared, and VDOT crews were focusing on secondary and neighborhood roads, Drewes said.

Two weather-related traffic deaths have been confirmed in the state.

The first occurred Friday afternoon in Carroll County, when a sport utility vehicle slid off a rural road and overturned. Barbara Allen, 68, of Willis was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene. She was not wearing a seat belt, police said.

The second fatality occurred Saturday at 10:19 p.m. on Interstate 66 in Fauquier County. A pickup truck was traveling westbound on I-66 when it struck a slow-moving, westbound tractor-trailer. The driver of the truck, Michael W. Marincic, 36, of Huntingdon, Pa., died at the scene. He was not wearing a seat belt, police said.

Virginia State Police believe two other deaths during the weekend were caused by the snowy, icy conditions, Sgt. Thomas Molnar said yesterday. From Friday evening to 8 p.m. yesterday, state police had responded to about 15,000 calls for service, including more than 3,100 crashes and 3,300 disabled vehicles.

Interstate 81 between Rockbridge and Botetourt counties, as well as U.S. 29 in the Charlottesville area, reopened yesterday, Drewes said. Those roads were shut down after people abandoned their vehicles when they spun out of control or no longer had traction, she said. About 200 cars and tractor-trailers had to be towed before VDOT crews could move in to clear the snow, Drewes added.

"It looked like a parking lot," she said.

While travel was smooth on central Virginia's main roads, some neighborhoods remained covered with snow yesterday. Debbie Woods, who lives in Short Pump, said that while crews plowed Church Road, they left a wall of snow blocking people from leaving her cul-de-sac.

But Jeff Bonner, who lives in Mason Woods in Chesterfield County, said his neighborhood roads were cleared yesterday.

"Any time we've had a storm like this, it has taken three days at the very least for anyone to plow our roads within the subdivision," he said. "This is the best I have seen."

VDOT prioritizes clearing roads based on travel capacity, starting from interstates down to subdivision roads, Drewes said. In the Richmond area, VDOT is responsible for clearing the roads in Chesterfield and Hanover counties, while Henrico and the city of Richmond maintain their own roads, she said.

By yesterday afternoon, power had been restored to all of the 5,000 Dominion Virginia Power customers in the Richmond and Tri-Cities areas who had been affected by the storm, said company spokesman David Botkins.

"Richmond-area outages were not nearly as bad as we had anticipated," he said. "We dodged the bullet."

The Shenandoah Valley and western Piedmont areas, which were hit harder by the storm, still had more than 2,000 customers without power as of yesterday at 7 p.m.

Updated outage information was not available last night from Appalachian Power. As of yesterday at 8 a.m. , more than 43,000 of its Virginia customers were without power, according to its Web site.

The weekend storm not only affected motorists but also stranded bus passengers heading up and down the East Coast.

After days at Richmond's Greyhound bus terminal on the Boulevard, some of the 500 people who had been stuck there began boarding buses yesterday around noon.

Greyhound city manager Ron DeMary said yesterday that direct routes to Washington, Baltimore and New York, as well as points in North Carolina such as Raleigh, Fayetteville and Charlotte, were scheduled to leave -- though routes farther away could continue to be affected.

Edith Jenkins and Helen Wright stood in line yesterday about noon for a chance to board a bus heading to New York. Both women were heading from South Carolina to Connecticut to see family.

"I haven't been to sleep in 48 hours," Jenkins said. "This has been the worst experience of my life."

Until yesterday, the last Greyhound bus had left Richmond on Friday at 7:50 p.m. for Fayetteville, said operations supervisor Stanley Stith.

Catrina Harris, a Virginia Commonwealth University student, was trying to get home to Washington to see her family. She had been at the terminal since late Saturday afternoon.

She said she typically takes the bus home, but after this weekend's ordeal, "I'm not doing it anymore," she said. "Never again."

Next time, Harris said, her friends and family "can come and pick me up."
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Contact Holly Prestidge at (804) 649-6945 or hprestidge@timesdispatch.com.
Contact Juan Antonio Lizama at (804) 649-6513 or jlizama@timesdispatch.com.