Columbus area awakes to snowy winter conditions, hazardous roadways

Columbus and the surrounding Chattahoochee Valley awoke Wednesday morning to a scenic winter wonderland that brought up to 3 inches of snow in some areas and hazardous road conditions throughout the day.

Columbus Police Maj. Charles Kennedy said 62 crashes had been reported between about 5:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., with six only of those leading to minor injuries. He said the collisions have occurred all throughout the city and none have caused serious injury.

While temperatures were expected to rise just above freezing Wednesday afternoon, they were forecast to plunge back down to around 20 degrees throughout the area. That means any moisture and patchy snow and ice on roads, particularly those with less traffic, were certain to refreeze, making driving treacherous.

“We’re expecting the weather to freeze again tonight, so we’re expecting the roads to ice over, and the driving conditions to get worse than they were this morning, since it won’t be snow; it will be ice. It will be like black ice,” Kennedy said.

There were accidents and hair-raising incidents Wednesday throughout the city. They ranged from vehicles spinning their wheels and getting stuck on Victory Drive to drivers finding their skills and vehicle traction were no match for an uphill grade on Manchester Expressway, with cars coming to a halt in the multilane roadway.

By Wednesday afternoon, there had been 20 to 30 accidents in Harris County, just north of Columbus, because of icy and snow-covered roads, according to an emergency management official.

“We’re doing great; if we can just keep people off the highways we’d be doing better,” said Monty Davis, the county’s 911/Emergency Management Agency director. “There are a lot of people riding around looking at the pretty snow, but they’re sliding of into the ditches and hitting other cars, because we still have a lot of icy patches.”

The arctic blast and frozen precipitation generated by Winter Storm Inga also prompted area schools, businesses, organizations and the Columbus Consolidated Government itself to make other plans for employees. Some closed immediately Wednesday morning, while others made the decision that noon openings simply were too risky for their workers to venture onto roadways.

The closures included major Columbus employers Aflac and Synovus, both of which initially were calling for staffers to be at work by noon. The companies quickly decided otherwise, reversing course before the lunch hour arrived.

“We’re monitoring the situation and may revise. It’s possible those won’t (open) at all,” Synovus spokesman Lee Underwood said Wednesday morning of bank branches that were to open at noon. The bank, which operates in five states, ultimately pulled the plug on ordering its workers to venture onto local roads to their Columbus offices. Dozens of Synovus banks in the Southeast, however, did have delayed openings or were closed altogether.

Other companies, such as credit-card processor TSYS, did decide to remain “open for business” on Wednesday, although Emily Edmonds, senior director of communications, pointed out that workers who felt uncomfortable driving to work on dicey roads were being allowed to work from home via their computers.

Wednesday’s already treacherous road conditions were not expected to improve overnight, with a low of around 20 degrees freezing any snow that melts, creating what is known as “black ice.” Without a snow cover, that ice blends into the pavement, so it’s hard to see, and motorists should not think an absence of snow means a road is safe.

“They should not think it’s a pass to get out there and drive like they normally do,” the CPD’s Kennedy said. “They’ll still need to exercise a lot of caution. There will be black ice on the road. There will be spots on the road that are more treacherous than others just because of the location where it is. We’re just again going to ask people to evaluate it in the morning, and if not necessary, stay off the road.”

The National Weather Service is forecasting a hard-freeze low of 19 degrees in Columbus Wednesday night into Thursday morning, which would likely put the wind chill into single digits. Areas outside of Columbus and Phenix City, such as Harris County and LaGrange in Georgia, and Auburn, Opelika and Eufaula in Alabama, will likely see temperatures a few degrees lower than that.

Columbus is forecast to top the freezing mark of 32 degrees by 11 a.m. Thursday, with surrounding areas possibly taking an hour of so longer.

But a shot of warm relief will quickly arrive, with a high of 46 and sunny skies forecast in Columbus on Thursday and melting away the rest of the ice-crusted snow on roadways. Temperatures will continue to climb into the lower 50s on Friday, upper 50s on Saturday and the mid-60s on Sunday. Those weather conditions will make Winter Storm Inga a distant memory.

Ledger-Enquirer staff reporters Tim Chitwood, Chuck Williams, Sarah Robinson, Alva James-Johnson and Scott Berson contributed to this report.

This story was originally published January 17, 2018 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Columbus area awakes to snowy winter conditions, hazardous roadways."