Snow causes multiple accidents on U.S. 20 bypass

December 06, 2010|By Clifton French (cfrench@wsbt.com)

MISHAWAKA — The snow continued to cause problems Monday night. At times visibility was very low, and accidents piled up throughout the day.

At one point, St. Joseph County dispatch reported over half a dozen accidents going on at the same time. Many were slide-offs, many more were much worse.

"Bad day for the bypass," said Battalion Chief John Vanbruaene with the Penn Township Fire Department, "A lot of multi-car accidents, a lot of slide offs — four of them that we know were injury accidents that we responded to — and all within 20 minutes of each other."

Just before 3 p.m. Monday it was lake-effect havoc on the bypass. About a quarter of a mile east of Elm Road, slick conditions caused at least four cars to collide, and while emergency crews were tending to that accident, vehicles east and west between Bremen Highway and Beech Road were sliding off the road and into each other.

"We responded five incidents within a half hour," Vanbruaene said, "Luckily enough we anticipated that and put extra guys on duty, and they got to the station probably 20 minutes before all that broke loose."

The number of accidents forced emergency crews to split, and caused westbound traffic to back up for miles.

Even though the Indiana Department of Transportation says plowing crews were on the road, crews just couldn't keep up with the amount of snow and slick conditions.

"With people going 55 miles per hour-plus, it doesn't take much for them to continue to hit each other and slide off the road," Vanbruaene said.

INDOT officials say it plows the bypass every two to three hours, all depending on the amount of snow. It has crews working around the clock on 12-hour shifts.

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