Another accident on Interstate 80 this one near Snowshoe brought traffic to a halt Today.
Douglas Braff went to the highway exit where traffic was diverted and spoke with some of the interstate drivers. Douglas?
Interstate 80 was backed up for miles. I could see the line of cars from above while I was on the mountain roads.
Folks I talked to at a gas station next to the exit where traffic was diverted said driving was a sluggish nightmare.
“So, how long were you on I-80 for? About 20 minutes.”
“How far did you travel in that 20 minutes?”
“Less than a mile.”
Will Stokvis who’s driving home to Colorado says he’s used to driving in snow like this. But that people in these parts are not.
“It’s not that bad, honestly, driving, even in the lanes that weren’t plowed. My assumption is people were going too fast, too close, and then they’re breaking and losing control
easily. I saw a few people spun out.”
Broderick Rheault is driving to Ohio from Connecticut.
“And once I hit that slowdown, I was on there for about probably About an hour straight, to go a mile and a half.”
Rheault tells me traffic in other parts of the state and the Northeast weren’t bad until he hit this part of Interstate 80.
“And I think I saw someone slide off the road. So, I think that had something to do with it, and then they closed down a lane, so it was only one lane of traffic. So, it was pretty
backed up and slow. Lot of tractor-trailers, a lot of people going slow, trying to avoid another accident.”
Timothy Nebgen a spokesperson for Penndot says much of these road conditions are inevitable with this level of snowfall.
That accumulation makes the job harder for snowplows. Nebgen says plow routes can be 35 to 40 miles in some cases. Meaning the same amount of snow will be there as when they started.
He also says penndot is not affected by supply chain issues.
For rapid updates on road conditions Penndot tells people to look at its 511 Pa App.
Reporting live from Centre County. I’m Douglas Braff.
