DFW commuters find smooth, but slow roads on Tuesday

While traffic moved smoothly on most freeways, frozen slush on overpasses and bridges roads were creating headaches for motorists, police and firefighters on Tuesday morning in some areas of North Texas.

And road crews were bracing for a second round of winter weather Wednesday as forecasters were calling for up to four inches of snow for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The main roads — Interstate 35W, Interstate 30 and the North Tarrant Express — in Tarrant County were moving smoothly Tuesday morning, but police and firefighters were still busy with numerous traffic accidents caused by icy conditions on overpasses and bridges.

Some streets and sidewalks in the heavily shaded downtown Fort Worth area remained treacherous.

“Most of the problems are on bridges and overpasses,” Texas Department of Transporation spokesman Val Lopez said Tuesday. “We’ve been 24/7 since Sunday and we’ll continue that way.”

Lopez said road crews will be out with graders to remove the slush on highways on Tuesday as temperatures warm up above freezing.

Oncor officials reported that about 1,000 residents in Tarrant and Dallas counties were without power on Tuesday, a majority of them in Tarrant County.

Almost 200 flights at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport were delayed or canceled on Tuesday, according to flightaware.com.

A dangerous layer of ice coated the region Monday, causing the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights at DFW and giving students a day off from school. Many motorists heeded warnings, leaving usually clogged freeways and major streets eerily deserted.

No more of the “thundersleet” that startled people awake early Monday is expected, but a winter storm watch is on for late Tuesday until noon Wednesday as forecasters were predicting two to four inches of snow.

By 8 p.m. Monday, most area school districts had announced that they would be closed on Tuesday.

Temperatures are expected to stay above freezing from noon to 10 p.m. Tuesday, which will allow much of the ice to melt. The snow on Wednesday could impact travel in North Texas.

It won’t stick around for long, with temperatures expected to climb to 48 degrees on Wednesday.

“It could cause problems for the commute but we will be getting well above freezing,” said Jamie Gudmestad, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Closings on Tuesday

As of Monday evening, these closures had been reported to the Star-Telegram. Check websites and social media, or call schools and organizations that are not listed.

School districts: Arlington, Argyle, Burleson, Crowley, Carroll, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, Cedar Hill, Dallas, Denton, Duncanville, Fort Worth, Grapevine-Colleyville, Grand Prairie, Keller, Mansfield, Northwest and White Settlement.

Higher education: Tarrant County College campuses, UT-Arlington, The University of North Texas and Texas Wesleyan universities closed. TCU will open at noon.

Government: All city offices in Aledo are closed. Fort Worth city offices will open at 10 a.m., and the library at noon. Most local county offices have delayed openings.

Other: The Fort Worth Catholic Diocese’s Catholic Center will be closed. The American Cancer Society’s Cowtown Ball Reception scheduled for Tuesday has been canceled. March 10 is the new date at Park Place Mercedes-Benz of Fort Worth.

Crews at work

North Texans had been enjoying a mild winter, watching in wonder the travails of residents of the Midwest and Northeast. But about 4 a.m. Monday, the blast of winter weather arrived in DFW with bands of “thundersleet.”

By dawn, most of the western half of the area was covered in ice.

By Monday night, city of Fort Worth crews had sanded all bridges at least twice. Crews started scraping off ice in driving lanes, city spokeswoman Michelle Gutt said.

A total of 309.23 tons of sand was dumped on roads Monday, she said.

Fourteen city trucks were to continue sanding bridges overnight.

State highway crews were “blading accumulated ice in one to two lanes along major interstate corridors before nightfall [Monday], but after nightfall we can expect it to refreeze,” said Michael Peters, a state Department of Transportation spokesman, said.

“We’ve made a lot of progress but we’re not out of the woods,” he said.

On Sunday, the agency called in a total of 227 workers, including 167 drivers and about 60 support staff. They used a variety of wet and dry agents to battle icing on the roads.

“In Tarrant County traffic has been moving fairly well,” Peters said, “but there is still ice out there.”

I-35W, a main north-south corridor in Fort Worth, was largely free of ice Tuesday morning, except for patches on bridges and overpasses. Sidewalks in downtown Fort Worth were treacherous in places.

While the highways may be cleared, a lot of city streets, particularly in Fort Worth and Arlington, likely will remain iced over. Many residential and side streets are ignored by ice-fighting crews, especially in the larger cities, where workers are overwhelmed just trying to clear the major thoroughfares.

Fort Worth wrecks

On Monday morning, driving was treacherous and many commuters heeded the warnings and stayed home.

From 9 Sunday through 4 p.m. Monday, Fort Worth police responded to 237 calls for help. Between 9 p.m. Sunday and noon Monday, there were 89 wrecks in Fort Worth, said Sgt. Steve Enright. Those calls don’t account for stranded motorists or abandoned vehicles — another 43 calls, he said.

From noon Monday to 4 p.m. there were another 65 wrecks and 40 calls for service.

MedStar responded to 26 vehicle wrecks after midnight, spokesman Matt Zavadsky said late Monday afternoon.

MedStar also responded to one icy fall, one cold exposure and four pregnancy calls, which are most likely due to parents wary of the drive to the hospital, he said.

On Monday, sleet amounts across Tarrant County ranged from a trace to a half-inch near Haslet. In Parker County, 2 inches of sleet was reported between Dennis and Brock in southwestern Parker County.

In downtown Fort Worth, most workers had stayed home, with parking lots nearly empty and many businesses closed.

But Bailey’s Barbecue, the venerable eatery that has been around since 1931, was open for business; there had been only about 15 customers by 1 p.m.

Asked if she would rather be home, Diane Esquivel of Bailey’s replied: “Oh yeah.”

Could be worse

Despite bringing DFW to a standstill, this storm was not proving to be as serious as the December 2013 “Icemaggedon” storm that coated roads in cobblestone ice.

It helped that the wintry precipitation falling out of the sky was sleet, rather than freezing rain.

Sleet is a softer form of precipitation. Tire tracks can more easily form in sleet, giving motorists a relatively safe path upon which to drive. Also, sleet gives the transportation department’s ice-prevention chemicals, sand and other materials a chance to work — unlike freezing rain, which simply hits the ground hard and frozen.

“There’s a lot of crunchy, slushy ice out there, but it’s certainly better than freezing rain,” TxDOT’s Lopez said.

It also bounces off power lines and trees rather than coating them in heavy ice. As a result, power outages were relatively minimal.

Gary Huddleston of Kroger said the grocery chain had been able to get trucks from its Keller warehouse to area stores.

“This one has been much easier,” Huddleston said. “It is not as intense. Even though the roads are not great, we’ve been able to get our trucks out. We’re trying to do as much as possible today to restock our stores to forestall any problems tomorrow morning.”

Staff writers Gordon Dickson, Mitch Mitchell and Domingo Ramirez Jr. contributed to this report.

This story was originally published February 23, 2015 at 12:09 PM with the headline "DFW commuters find smooth, but slow roads on Tuesday."