Dickinson Co. Authorities Say The Volume Of Calls Of Vehicles In Ditches During Wednesday’s Blizzard Was The Highest They’ve Seen In Recent Years

(Spirit Lake)– Local officials say the volume of calls they responded to regarding accidents and vehicles in ditches during Wednesday’s blizzard was the highest they’ve seen in comparable storms in previous years. Dickinson County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Ehret says it was non-stop all day Wednesday and Wednesday night…Blizzard Stats01 

“Looking at our figures we had 11 disabled vehicles which could be somebody that broke down or was stuck on the roadway or things like that. We did have 13 accidents, again no injuries with any of those but they did involve some sort of property damage whether it was to the car or maybe they struck something or whatever, and then we had 34 what we call VOR’s or vehicle off road, and that’s just when a car goes in the ditch there’s no damage or anything like that, but they’re in the ditch and they’re stuck and so forth, so 34 of those is a pretty high number. A lot of storms we don’t see the numbers of cars in the ditches than we did yesterday but for whatever reason yesterday was a really busy day for us.”

Ehret says there are several factors that may have attributed to the abnormally high numbers…Blizzard Stats02 

“The roads got really slick there all of a sudden in the morning as the temperature was dropping and so yeah, there was that layer of ice underneath. I think you couple that with, you know, two days before Christmas a lot of people are traveling so there are a lot of people out and about anyway. And then you throw in, you know Minnesota, MnDOT closed down all the roads up there last night, including I-90. A lot of times when that happens we see an increase in traffic on Highway 9 because people’s navigation systems, you know, if you’re using a phone, you know, Googlemaps and so forth, they see those closures and then they’ll re-route you to the next closest route to get across west to east or east to west is Highway 9, so we tend to see an increase in traffic when they close down I-90 and I think that was part of the issue we had last night.”

Ehret says things have been improving during the day so far, but he says motorists are still going to have to allow for some extra caution…Blizzard Stats03 

“Patience. You know, give the crews time to get the roads cleaned up. It’s very cold out so when it gets this cold a lot of times the salt and chemicals don’t work to melt the ice. The sun’s out so that’s a plus but the air temperature is still way down there, so the roads might still be slick. Give them time to get out and get them cleaned. You know they’re also having to work around the cars that are still in the ditches and maybe on the edges of the road, so be cautious of that. Tow trucks are going to be busy all day so you’re going to see a lot of that on the side of the road and if your car is one of those in the ditch you’re going to have to be patient as well because I’m sure they’ve got a long list of cars to get pulled out today, so.”

Ehret says of all the accidents and vehicles in ditches, fortunately there were no serious injuries reported in Dickinson county.