By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
“It can’t get gone fast enough,” was the sentiment expressed by Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman regarding the latest round of snow that dumped six inches or more on the area.
But sunshine returned Friday and temperatures will continue to rise through the weekend.
Sherwood Police Capt. Scott McFarland said officers were kept busy Wednesday morning right through Friday with accidents. “Most were minor fender benders,” he said, “but one or two people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.”
McFarland said one of those fender benders included a police vehicle. “It wasn’t the officer’s fault, another driver slid into him. The officer gave the other driver a warning and even drove him home,” the captain said.
The storm was the third major snow of the winter and moved this winter up to number seven on the all time snowiest winters.
This latest round dumped 24.5 inches of snow at Siloam Springs in the northwest part of the state, 18 inches in Fayetteville and 10 inches in Harrison. The record snowfall amount is 25 inches, which hit Corning in 1918. More than a foot of snow fell in just three hours near Jasper on Thursday morning.
Locally, Little Rock Air Force Base reported 6.3 inches of snow from Wednesday through Thursday. The National Weather Service recorded 6.2 inches at its station in North Little Rock and 5.9 inches at the Little Rock airport.
Along with the heavy Wednesday snows, came near-record cold temperatures Thurs-day morning. Fayetteville recorded a temperature of 18 degrees below zero and the some community of Highfill in Benton County hit 21 degrees below zero. The record low occurred back in 1905 when Gravette hit 29 degrees below zero.
The base record a low temperature of two degrees Thursday morning and so far for the month local temperatures have averaged about 13 degrees below the normal for this time of the year.
Heavy snows, stalled traffic and accidents closed Interstate 40 between Little Rock and Lonoke for most of Thursday and I-540, north of Alma and I-40, was also closed.
Three people died in snow related accidents along I-40 during the snowstorm.
A woman was killed along I-40 near Galloway when she lost control of her vehicle. Another woman and her one-year child were killed in an accident near Brinkley.
Capt. Kenny Boyd, with the Jacksonville Police Department said, “We had a lot of drivers slide off the roadways Wednesday, Thursday and still on Friday. During the height of the problems Thursday the police were so busy with accidents that they didn’t write up most of the accidents where the vehicles just slid off the roadway.
Among those vehicles slip-sliding were two patrol cars. “We had to write up reports on those because they slid off and collided with fixed objects,” Boyd said, adding that in both cases the officers, like many other drivers, just hit a patch of ice.
Sherwood’s Public Works Director Brian Galloway said late Friday that things really hadn’t slowed up much for his crews and that they were still out checking roads and sanding.
Before the storm hit, Galloway said the city had about 1,000 tons of sand left. “WE used quite a bit of it for this storm,” he said. Galloway added that his two two-man sand crews logged more than 64-manhours Wednesday and Thursday. “There are still a lot of icy spots. We are doing the best we can,” he said.
Galloway said Friday his focus is now turning to garbage pickup. “We are three days behind and it’s starting to pile up. We ran all our trucks Friday and may do the same on Saturday.”
Austin Mayor Bernie Chamberlain said the city had spent about $800 for salt and sand to clear Austin streets. She said Friday afternoon that Highway 367, which runs through the downtown area, still had icy spots underneath trees, but the streets in Austin were clear.
Jerrel Maxwell, head of public works in Cabot, said he spent about $1,000 to sand hills and overpasses to help keep traffic moving, about the same amount he spent the last time it snowed.
His workers spread sand at the police station and all the fire stations, he said. They also sanded Cut Hill on Highway 367, the overpass on Highway 89, the hill leading into the housing area on Rockwood, Lincoln Street around the high school and on street leading into West Oaks subdivision.
Their efforts kept most motorists from sliding off the road, he said, adding that although it is safer to just stay home when the roads are bad, unless a few decide to brave the snow and ice the roads stay bad longer. It’s the traffic that starts the thaw, he said.
Ward Mayor Art Brooke said a crew of two working with the bucket on a backhoe, sand and donated salt have kept streets clear in his town. The only day there were any problems at was Thursday, the day after the snow fell.
The state takes care of the highways through town, Brooke said, but his crew spread extra salt and sand at the intersections to ensure that they were clear.
Dr. Tony Thurman, superintendent of Cabot Schools, said Friday that if this is the last of the snow as expected, Cabot Schools would close for the summer on June 3.
The state requires every district to have 178 instruction days and the district has five days built into this year’s school calendar that can be used as make-up days, he said.
Friday made the fifth day that Cabot was out for snow, which means it has used all the days that were built in.
“We would not consider using spring break days unless we were to go over the five days that are identified on the calendar,” Thurman said.
(Leader staff writer Joan McCoy contributed to this article.)
