Mother Nature dumped a nasty wintry mix of snow, ice and sleet - covered in haze - on the city Monday evening.
Area roadways turned into sheets of ice when melting snow met extreme temperature drops, prompting city police to respond to nearly 70 traffic accidents in 12 hours.
While conditions were clearly treacherous, the city's street department deemed it necessary to release just 60 percent of its salt-truck fleet onto the roads.
“The events (Monday) night, they're the most difficult events to treat, because right now the ground temperature is warm and when the snow is falling, the snow melts on the pavement,” said Public Works Director Bob Kennedy.
“In a one-hour period (Monday) night, the temperature dropped 4 degrees. When it drops quick like that, the whole city freezes up basically at the same time. So you've got 1,200 miles of roads that you've got to treat, and even though Brad (Baumgartner, Fort Wayne Street Commissioner) has staff in there already, it's a catch-up time for the snow that quickly.”
The street department said it monitored the storm throughout the day via satellite and television and determined the elements did not warrant its full 25-truck force, despite conditions that saw 67 traffic accidents - 64 with property damage and three with personal injuries - that city police responded to from 6 p.m. Monday to 6 a.m. Tuesday.
The wrinkle: The sudden drop in temperature froze the melting snow, putting the streets in a deep freeze and drivers in danger. The colder it gets, the less effective salt is, which in turn calls for additional salt.
Baumgartner said he had his full fleet of salt trucks stocked and ready to go if needed, but said he deployed enough trucks for every needy route.
The 15 street department salt trucks that were called on were hampered, though, because they were working squarely in the middle of extended rush-hour traffic, limiting the trucks' ability to spread salt.
More trucks seemed not to be the answer for the city, and really nothing else was, either, in a seemingly winless battle.
“I've been doing this for 28 years, and every situation is different,” said Baumgartner.
“When you have a condition like this where the temperatures drop drastically, there's nothing you can do other than send the trucks out there to salt the streets. They couldn't get through because of the heavy traffic.
“As soon as the salt hit the streets, it busted up and everything was good. I felt we did what we should have done.”
Baumgartner and Kennedy both put the blame of the flurry of traffic accidents Monday night more to driver error than road conditions and lack of salt, calling it a “learning curve” that area drivers go through when the first snow hits that leads to a rash of accidents.
The street department maintains, though, it accommodated the demand for salt and service Monday night into Tuesday, and the 40 percent of its salt-truck fleet that sat idle would have made no difference.
