Virginia officials defend response to snowy gridlock on I-95

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RICHMOND, Va. – A wintertime tempest that started arsenic rainfall — meaning roads couldn't beryllium pretreated — followed by an unusually dense snowfall and plunging temperatures resulted successful the stranding of hundreds of motorists on a agelong of 1 of the nation's biggest interstate highways, Virginia officials said, arsenic they defended their effect to the gridlock.

There were nary reported deaths oregon injuries from the calamity connected Interstate 95, but plentifulness of outrage from motorists, immoderate of whom were stranded overnight Monday into Tuesday, posting pleas for assistance connected societal media.

“We each request to beryllium wide that this was an incredibly antithetic event," Gov. Ralph Northam said astatine a quality conference, adding that helium could recognize drivers' “frustration and fear.”

Problems began Monday morning, erstwhile a motortruck jackknifed connected Interstate 95 betwixt Richmond and Washington, triggering a swift concatenation absorption arsenic different vehicles mislaid control, authorities constabulary said.

They mounted passim the time arsenic snowfall fell astatine a complaint of up to 2 inches an hour, said Marcie Parker, a Virginia Department of Transportation technologist starring the effort to wide the interstate.

“That was wholly excessively overmuch for america to support up with,” she told reporters. “Consequently, with the magnitude of postulation that we had connected the interstate, the trucks and the cars couldn’t marque it up and down the hills due to the fact that we had excessively overmuch snowfall and crystal retired there.”

Lanes successful some directions yet became blocked crossed an astir 40-mile agelong of I-95 northbound of Richmond. As hours passed and nighttime fell, motorists posted messages connected societal media astir moving retired of fuel, nutrient and water.

Truck operator Emily Slaughter said she was driving from New Jersey to Georgia to present vegetables for FedEx and became stranded for 5 hours connected the southbound broadside of I-95. She said everything connected the roadworthy was good until she deed Virginia.

“All of a abrupt you could nary longer spot lines. It got a small scary there,” she said.

Slaughter said she soon came to a halt and she recovered retired astir the disabled vehicles connected the vigor and implicit societal media.

“People were saying, ‘we’re moving retired of gas’ oregon ‘our kids are hungry,’” she said.

Meera Rao and her husband, Raghavendra, were driving location from visiting their girl successful North Carolina erstwhile they got stuck Monday evening. They were lone 100 feet past an exit but could not determination for astir 16 hours.

“Not 1 constabulary (officer) came successful the 16 hours we were stuck,” she said. “No 1 came. It was conscionable shocking. Being successful the astir precocious state successful the world, nary 1 knew however to adjacent wide 1 lane for each of america to get retired of that mess?”

Northam defended his determination not to activate the Virginia National Guard oregon state a authorities of emergency.

He said the contented facing authorities crews was not a deficiency of manpower but the trouble of getting workers and instrumentality done the snowfall and crystal to wherever they needed to be. And helium said a authorities of emergency, which would typically beryllium declared hours oregon days earlier an lawsuit to make other flexibility successful responding, would person done nary good.

Up to 11 inches of snowfall fell successful the country during Monday’s blizzard, according to the National Weather Service, and authorities constabulary had warned radical to debar driving unless perfectly necessary, particularly arsenic colder nighttime temperatures acceptable in.

Because the tempest began with rain, crews could not pretreat the roads due to the fact that the brackish oregon chemicals would person washed away, officials said. Some postulation cameras were besides knocked retired by powerfulness outages. And Parker said the presumption of the postulation backups successful narration to the interstate's explicit lanes meant they were not of overmuch usage to wide the logjams.

Crews worked passim the time to wide the roadway, and postulation spilled retired onto secondary roads, causing further delays.

By aboriginal evening, lone astir 20 cars remained connected the affected conception of roadworthy and nary 1 was near stranded, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation said.

Officials ne'er provided an estimation of the fig of vehicles that tied up successful the jam. Photos showed they numbered successful the hundreds, if not thousands.

The tempest besides near passengers connected an Amtrak bid stranded successful Virginia. Amtrak’s Crescent near New Orleans connected Sunday connected its mode to New York and got stuck adjacent Lynchburg connected Monday morning, erstwhile downed trees blocked the tracks.

Passenger Sean Thornton told AP that Amtrak provided food, but toilets were overflowing and passengers were furious. Amtrak planned for the bid to implicit its travel erstwhile the tracks are clear.

Kelly Hannon, a spokeswoman for the proscription department, apologized to motorists for the I-95 logjam and said the section would instrumentality an “exhaustive look” astatine the incident.

Marvin Romero, who was driving location from a household abrogation successful South Florida with his daughters, ages 10 and 8, took a alternatively optimistic presumption of the situation, contempt spending 20 hours and a long, anxious nighttime successful the car.

“To me, I spot it arsenic a once-in-a-lifetime experience. How galore radical tin really accidental that they stepped connected I-95, oregon they slept connected I-95?" helium said. "It’s hopefully a communicative that I tin archer my grandkids 1 day.”

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Associated Press writers Matthew Barakat successful Falls Church, Virginia; Bryan Gallion successful Roseland, New Jersey; Michael Kunzelman successful College Park, Maryland; Ben Finley successful Norfolk, Virginia; and Julie Walker successful New York contributed to this report.

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