Published: February 14, 2007 10:16 pm         

Drivers handled this storm better than last week’s

TERRE HAUTE — As tow-truck driver Chris Green was on his way to answer one call, a voice from his citizens band radio told him about another stop he should get to.

He said the calls began to get more frequent around 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Green, who works for Mike’s Auto Wrecking & Towing Service, has been driving a tow truck for 10 years.

“I haven’t really towed anything in two days,” he said. “I’ve just been doing all the winching.”

Calls for help in Terre Haute’s second major blast of winter slowed down by 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, he said, but restarted at 6 a.m. Wednesday.

“Everybody was trying to get home [Tuesday], and this morning it was everybody trying to get out,” Green said Wednesday afternoon.

By 2:30 p.m., Green said he had helped free at least a dozen vehicles from the snow.

One of the most common things Green does during snowy weather is help people get their vehicles out of their snow-blocked driveways.

Also, he makes a lot of runs to the rural areas because snow plows don’t make it out there as much as they do in the city.

The hardest part, Green said, can be getting his tow truck to the stranded people, especially if the road they’re on isn’t plowed.

“If nobody’s driven the road, you have to make the path to get to them,” Green said.

Although Green has been kept busy over the past two days, he said last week’s snowstorm kept him busier.

“Usually with the first snow like that we’re the busiest,” he said. “After, people calm down in their aggressive driving.”

Last week, he said he spent 3 1/2 hours on the interstate helping people who had slide-offs.

Indiana State Police Lt. Brent Johnson said there haven’t been any problems compared with last week’s storm.

Since midnight Monday, there were 10 property damage accidents and about 20 slide-offs compared with last week when there were about 29 accidents. There have not been any injury accidents from this week’s storm, he said.

On eastbound Interstate 70 in Putnam County around noon Wednesday, a trailer came unhitched from a semi after striking a box trailer, according to a dispatcher for the State Police Putnamville post. There were no injuries.

Everything was cleaned up by 2 p.m. and traffic was expected to pick up, according to a dispatcher said.

“Everybody’s been doing a really good job of slowing down and using common sense,” Johnson said. “Just don’t travel if you absolutely don’t have to. It’s just not worth the risk of getting injured or hurt.”

Chief George Ralston of the Terre Haute Police Department said they haven’t had to head out to anything big, just a few fender benders.

Ralston said they also haven’t had any problems responding to other calls, either.

Vigo County Sheriff Jon Marvel said some of his deputies have been getting stuck but “service calls have been way down.”

Marvel said when the Vigo County Commissioners declared a snow emergency, it helped, because people stayed off the roads.

Around 2 p.m. the emergency was lifted and Marvel said most of the main roads are open and crews would be working into the night to clear secondary roads.

Brad Miller, Terre Haute transportation director, said, “Streets are doing as well as can be expected.”

Miller expected plowing to cease by 4 p.m. Wednesday and pick up again at 7 a.m. today, he said.

“We’ve worked around the clock since Monday night at nine,” Miller said. “Of course it was hard keeping up [Monday] because as soon as we picked it up, Mother Nature put it back down.”

Although most of the snow the sun melted was expected to freeze because of Wednesday night’s frigid temperatures, Miller said it wouldn’t improve much if his crews stayed out any later.

“Once you reach around 15 degrees, salt doesn’t work,” he said.

While they’ll be working hard on the main roads, he said they rarely get to plow the side streets.

“There’s 343 miles of streets in Terre Haute and we do not have the resources nor the manpower to plow each and every street,” he said.

Also, by the time they are done plowing the main streets, Miller said most of the side streets have been driven on so much the snow is packed down and becomes ice. There’s no way to plow ice, he said.

They plan to put sand and salt down on the side streets and wait for the snow and ice to melt away, he said.

“It would be nice if we could plow every street in town,” Miller said. “ … No city this size actually gets to every street.”

Crystal Garcia can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or crystal.garcia@tribstar.com.