Feb 11th, or Yet Another Snow Day

The National Guard, DEMA, State Police and Kent County commmanders have been working throughout the night to extricate motorists from stranded vehicles, provide transport for emergency services, provide medical support to those in need, including responding to dyalysis needs and co-ordinating the movement of medical personnel throughout the state.

We have one shelter active in Milford. Reports from New Castle County indicate up to 50 disabled tractor-trailer vehicles on RT301 near Middletown. RT13 Southbound is impassable in places due to snow drifts as high, or higher than a Humvee.

The road conditions are so bad on some routes, including RT-1, that even Humvees and LMTV's have had a hard time navigating the roadways. Reports of stranded motorists were still coming in around 1000 UTC, many of whom had been stuck in their vehicles for hours, and National Guard units have been driving to those affected and taking them to the shelter. Many small vehicles as well as tractor-trailer rigs, have been abandoned and are awaiting tow from many of these routes within Kent County. Crews have been working throughout the night to try and remove some of these vehicles, but this has proved to be difficult because the tow trucks have to be coordinated with plows, or those too will become stuck.

The official word is that the roads will likely not be safe for general transportation today or tomorrow due to the amount of snow and number of routes affected. Kent County ARES has been monitoring for traffic throughought the night, and will continue to do so throughout the State of Emergency.