Winter storm dumps snow on Mid-Ohio Valley
Chase Maze of Belpre shovels snow at a home in Belpre Monday afternoon after heavy snows hit the area and residents around the area continue to dig out. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
PARKERSBURG — The Mid-Ohio Valley is digging out from winter storm Blair as record snowfall hit the area Sunday and Monday. Seven to 10 inches of snow fell across the Parkersburg area Sunday and into Monday, said Jeremy Michael, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston. Many schools throughout the area were closed. It continued snowing throughout the day Monday, with Michael estimating another 1-3 inches of accumulation. “It would not surprise me if some areas got a foot or more of snow when it is all said and done,” he said. The snow was expected to leave the area by 9 p.m. Monday evening. “Then it will be very cold and dry (today),” Michael said. The Weather Service is expecting highs in the mid-20s with breezes that could bring the wind chill down to 14 by this morning. “Through our forecast period, we don’t have any above-freezing temperatures in the Parkersburg area all the way through Sunday,” Michael said. “It will be a prolonged period of cold weather.” Temperatures dropping to between zero and minus 1 by Thursday night and into Friday morning are possible, he said. “It will be very cold temperatures as we go through the middle portion of the week,” Michael said. Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce said the city had seven trucks on the road with plows and spreaders. Crews started treating roads around 5 p.m. Sunday, the mayor said, noting they switched over to their snow removal plan and worked until around 5 a.m. Monday. The next shift started around 6:30 a.m. There were “some minor issues” with one of the salt spreaders, which was repaired, Joyce said. “Public works will continue 12-14 hours on and off until the need subsides,” he said. “They’ll focus on the planned routes and ‘assigned’ streets for the foreseeable future. “The city of Parkersburg will keep all seven trucks on duty as long as they remain operable.” Staff is on duty at the city garage Joyce, to make repairs when necessary, Joyce said, crediting Public Works Director Everett Shears and Street Superintendent J.D. Karcher for having the plows and spreaders prepped Friday to allow for immediate loading and dispatch Sunday afternoon. “City of Parkersburg public works focuses on busiest city streets, hills and intersections and then proceeds to less traveled streets and secondary roadways as the snow subsides and time and resources permit,” Joyce said. Shears said a challenge was the continuing snowfall throughout the day. “You clear it off, and the new snow just covers it back up,” he said. “We are still working around the clock, plowing and keeping hill and intersections plowed and salted to try and keep them as clear as we can.” With the freezing temperatures, not much will be melting away. As of 1 p.m. Monday, Joyce said no traffic accidents were reported due to the weather conditions. Around 12:30 p.m., a supervisor at the Wood County 911 Center said the area was lucky because few accidents were reported on Monday. They had gotten a number of reports of vehicles stuck in the snow, unable to get up hills and so on, she said. They had one accident along U.S. 50, around the 7 ½ -mile marker, where a car went into the median due to snowy road conditions. There were no injuries as a result. They had not had any multi-vehicle accidents or anything with any injuries by that time, the supervisor said. In Washington County, the Ohio Department of Transportation had 18 crews working 12-hour shifts on roads in Washington County from Sunday night and throughout the day on Monday, said ODOT District 10 spokeswoman Ashley Rittenhouse. ODOT covers U.S. routes, state routes and interstates. “We will continue to be out there for as long as we are needed,” Rittenhouse said. “Even after the snow stops, it looks like we will remain below freezing for the remainder of this week and nothing is going to thaw out anytime soon.” ODOT is advising people if they have to go out to use extreme caution, Rittenhouse said of freezing temperatures. “This is more snow than we have seen in a couple of years,” Rittenhouse said. “They will continue to be out there as long as they need to be,” she said. “Be patient, and give the crews room to work.” She said there had been three instances statewide on Sunday of vehicle hitting plow trucks, but none of those were in Washington County. Washington County Engineer Roger Wright said crews have been out since Sunday night and are continuing to work. The county has 16 snow routes of 20-25 miles for a truck. “We have gotten a lot of snow,” he said adding they have been concentrating on plowing and putting down some product. They were waiting for the snow to stop before concentrating on putting down more road treatment materials. “This has been a challenge,” Wright said. “We are doing the best we can to make the roads passable.” It could be this coming Sunday or Monday before any of the snow out there will begin to melt, Wright said. He advises people if they have to be somewhere to leave early, give themselves plenty of time to get there and drive more carefully. Washington County started off the day at a Level 3 snow emergency, where roads were only open to essential personnel. A posting by the Washington County Sheriff’s Department said Washington County Sheriff Mark A. Warden declared a Level 3 Snow Emergency to keep citizens off the road so that road crews could clear the roads of snow. At 10:45 a.m., Warden downgraded the snow emergency level to Level 2 which means roadways were hazardous with blowing and drifting snow. Level 2 means only those who feel it is necessary to drive should be on the roadways. During a Level 2 Snow Emergency, people are urged to contact their employer to see if they should report for work. However, by 4 p.m. the Level 3 snow emergency was put back in place based on information provided by road deputies, according to a post on the sheriff’s department’s website. The Ohio State Highway Patrol in Marietta reported they too only had some reports of vehicles being stuck in the snow, a dispatcher said adding otherwise it had been fairly quiet throughout the day. Officials at local hospitals are also dealing with the weather. Camden Clark Medical Center President and CEO Sean Smith said they had been busy throughout the day with patients coming in. They have had some employees call off, but the hospital was able to put up around 60 workers at a hotel who were working Monday so they could be prepared, Smith said. “We had been planning over 72 hours for (Monday) and (today),” he said. The hospital cancelled outpatient procedures and clinics on Monday. “The safety of our patients and employees are at the forefront of our minds so we took the necessary precautions,” Smith said. Today, the hospital will delay the opening of most of their ambulatory services and clinics until 10 a.m. The hospital’s cancer services, the infusion center, Medical Office Building B, lab and diagnostic services, MRI and others will be opening at their regular time. “Hopefully around 10 a.m. we will be back on normal operations,” Smith said adding hospital officials are continuing to assess and reassess what needs to be done. Crews will be working to make sure parking areas at the hospital and clinics are cleared off and ready to receive patients this morning, said Marjean Kennedy, vice president of marketing, development and strategic initiatives at Camden Clark. “That way everything will be cleaned off and ready to go,” she said. Jennifer Offenberger, vice president of service excellence at Memorial Health System, said things were business as usual at Marietta Memorial Hospital and the Memorial Campus in Belpre on Monday. “We have not postponed surgeries, and clinics are open,” she said. “We are here to serve the health needs of our community. “We are essential to our community and often the place they reach out to in emergency situations.” Offenberger said their Athens clinics for orthopedics, OBGYN, ophthalmology and specialty clinics were closed on Monday. However, their emergency department and other offices there remained open. Offenberger expects all service will be open today. “Our philosophy is we will continue to provide care to our communities under all circumstances,” she said. Closures include schools in Wood, Wirt, Pleasants, Ritchie, Tyler, Calhoun, Jackson, Roane and Doddridge counties in West Virginia. In Washington County, Marietta. Belpre, Fort Frye and Wolf Creek are among the systems that will be closed on Tuesday. Washington State College of Ohio in Marietta and WVU Parkersburg also will be closed on Tuesday. County offices in Wood County will be closed on Tuesday, Wood County Commission President Blair Couch said. *** City Editor Evan Bevins contributed to this story.