Despite a heavy snow that blanketed Jefferson County on Wednesday and Thursday (Feb. 2-3), no weather-related deaths or other serious problems were reported, officials said.
The National Weather Service in St. Louis reported that about 6 to 8 inches of snow fell in the region between Wednesday and Thursday.
Warren Robinson, director of the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management, said today (Feb. 4) that because of the early warning about the winter storm and because less ice than expected came down, the event was more manageable than usual.
“I think it went well,” he said. “It was a big snow fall and an extended-duration incident, so it was a little while before we could get out there and start working on the roads. The rain beforehand meant there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for pretreatment. After it stopped snowing, it seems like the roads got steadily better.”
Robinson said as of this morning, there were no reports of fatal accidents or major power outages because of the storm.
“(Power outages) were something we were concerned about with the ice that was projected, but that seemed to miss us,” he said. “I think the largest number I saw reported at one time was about 20, which is pretty low even for a normal day. It turned out to be a relatively easy incident.”
Jefferson County 911 Dispatch received fewer calls on Wednesday and Thursday, said Travis Williams, the agency’s chief.
“It was a lower-than-normal call volume for the amount of snow we got compared to years past,” he said. “We have had snow or ice storms that are not predicted that catch people off guard; those are the hardest for us. It is usually the sneaky storms that no one is predicting that increases the call volume.”
Despite the relatively quiet night at the dispatch center, Williams said it was fully staffed, and operators spent the night at work because of the snowstorm.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office got fewer calls for service during the storm than it does on a calm weather day, Capt. Andy Sides.
He said the Sheriff’s Office did switch road crews to four-wheel drive vehicles and had two deputies per vehicle because of the weather. The agency also prioritized calls based on the severity of the situation.
“For the most part people stayed in, though, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic,” Sides said. “I think maybe the severity of what was projected had people make up their minds not to venture out.”
Cpl. Dallas Thompson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said fewer calls than were expected came in for the St. Louis area on Wednesday when the winter weather started moving in, although they increased Thursday when most of the snow occurred.
He said the Highway Patrol received 341 calls Wednesday, including 178 for stranded motorists and 103 for accidents. He said only three of those accidents involved injuries, but none of them serious.
Thompson said the Highway Patrol received 543 calls Thursday, including 393 stranded motorists and 91 accidents. He said three of the accidents had reported injuries, with two of them serious but not life-threatening.
“The majority of the calls started happening around (Thursday) afternoon, about 2 p.m., when traffic volume started picking up,” he said. “I don’t know if people had cabin fever and wanted to get out and see what the roads look like.”
Thompson said the Highway Patrol received several complaints about people driving tractor-trailers erratically, recklessly passing vehicles or driving too fast.
“We had several incidents on (interstates) 70 and 44 with multiple tractor-trailers jack-knifed, causing major issues,” he said. “The big trucks go well in the snow, but they don’t stop well at all. They also may get cut off by another vehicle, hit their brakes and start sliding. Once they start sliding, there is really no stopping them.”
Thompson also said the Highway Patrol got a call about 3 a.m. Thursday about a driver in an SUV who appeared “irate” and aggressively drove around a Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) snowplow on I-55 near Hwy. 141 in Arnold. The SUV clipped the front of the plow and spun out and ended up in a snowbank on the side of the interstate. However, the SUV driver was able to get out of the snowbank and drove away.
“We never located him,” Thompson said. “There was very minor damage, if any at all, to the plow.”
Thompson said traffic volume began increasing this morning, but the Highway Patrol only got calls about minor accidents during the morning commute.
Arnold Public Works Director Judy Wagner said the city had few problems clearing roadways after the snow ceased, and she was unaware of any major power outages in the city.
“Our team did an excellent job, I think, considering the two phases of the storm and how that complicates things,” she said. “It could have been worse there.”
Festus Police Chief Tim Lewis said his department got about seven calls stemming from weather-related incidents on Wednesday and Thursday, and only one of those was about a vehicle accident.
“I was out Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., and it was like a ghost town,” Lewis said. “We helped a few people who were stranded. We did run into a couple from Savannah, Ga., who were freaked out because they had never seen snow before, but there was hardly any traffic.”
Officials said they believed there were fewer calls for emergency help than during past winter weather events because of the early warning and because more people have the ability to work from home instead of driving into work.
“I feel like folks did a good job of heeding the call to stay indoors,” Robinson said. “That, combined with the lack of ice, made this a fairly manageable incident. Our public safety partners were really staffed up going into this. They were busy out there, but it was not overwhelming.”