Ice Age

A routine 15-minute trip from Mahopac to Carmel took more than an hour and a half Sunday. Main highways, secondary roads, and even tertiary roads became ice skating rinks Sunday afternoon when Mother Nature delivered a cruel late autumn freezing rainstorm on the Hudson Valley, turning blacktop into a sheet of ice within minutes. Eric Gross The New York State DOT has taken it on the chin for its tardiness in responding to Sunday’s ice storm that paralyzed the region and resulted in numerous crashes including a fatality in Patterson.

Officials on the town level charged Monday that state highway trucks were no where to be found when freezing rain coated area highways making them impassable.

Carmel Supervisor Kenneth Schmitt expressed dismay that Route 6 between Mahopac and Carmel was completely closed due to the treacherous conditions: “Our police department handled 60 crashes on that stretch of highway because the road was untreated. The Carmel Highway Department got out. Why didn’t the state?”

Schmitt said a town-owned highway sand and salt truck drove up Route 6 from Mahopac towards Carmel and “deposited a quantity of calcium chloride on the road which allowed traffic to crawl. I hate to think what might have happened should there have been a major emergency during that time.”

In Patterson, footing was so poor along untreated Route 22 that emergency responders aiding victims at the scene of a fatal car-truck crash had to virtually hold onto equipment or each other so EMS providers would not fall.

A veteran firefighter said he never saw the conditions so bad.

Similar reports were received about sections of Routes 684, 84, the Taconic State Parkway and Routes 9 and 301 all cared for by the DOT.

The Courier contacted the Department of Transportation’s Regional Office in Poughkeepsie Monday. Allison Ackerman, the Public Information Officer for the agency released the following statement: “As of Friday, the forecast for the lower Hudson Valley was calling for rain only through and including Sunday.

At 12:05 p.m. Sunday, the department received notification that the weather was expected to rapidly change to freezing rain. Our maintenance crews were called immediately to report to work as quickly and safely as possible but due to the quick change in conditions, many of our staff was driving to work on icy roads. Upon their arrival, crews were sent out.

The DOT makes every attempt to be pro-active when responding to weather events. Our crews on a consistent basis report to work prior to the anticipated start time of a storm. Unfortunately, due to the rapidly changing weather conditions on Sunday, we were unable to get the crews to work in advance of the road icing. The department is currently reviewing the events of this past weekend and will make every effort to prevent this from happening again in the future.”

Supervisor Schmitt responded; “I sure hope so!”