Snow leads to wave of accidents

Law enforcement officers in the county have been busy for the last 18 hours working accidents resulting from the snow and sleet that fell Thursday.

Capt. Larry Williams of the Mississippi County Sheriff's Office said that deputies were out most of the night assisting motorists who had slid off the roadway.

The majority of those vehicles were tractor-trailers which jack-knifed and slid onto the shoulder and median.

Williams estimated deputies assisted 12 trucks and eight to 10 passenger vehicle occupants in the 18 hours from Thursday to early this morning.

Two of the accidents involved vehicles that rolled over, but no injuries were reported, Williams said. Both of those accidents, and some of the others worked by the county, were on Interstate 55.

Officers of the Arkansas State Police were also out all night Thursday assisting with accidents. A person who answered the phone at ASP headquarters in Jonesboro this morning said that he had "no idea" of the number of accidents worked, but knew it was several.

Capt. Ricky Jefferson of the Blytheville Police Department said that there was only one private property accident in Blytheville so far during the inclement weather.

Employees of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department's maintenance office in Blytheville were out spreading sand, salt and other chemicals on bridges and overpasses in an effort to fight the ice that formed overnight, a spokeswoman said.

"They're all out working," she said.

Employees of the Mississippi County Road Department have been busy trying to make county properties safer for citizens by spreading salt and sand mixtures on sidewalks and other walkways of the two county courthouses, said Don Lasater, county road foreman.

"There's not much we can do about ice" on the county roads, Lasater said, explaining that snow can be graded off the paved roadways, but ice cannot. Grading snow off gravel roads and grading ice off paved roads damages the roads more than it benefits travelers, he explained.

dhilton@blythevillecourier.com