Area hit with winter weather; accidents reported

Southeast Missouri received its first round of snowfall for the year Friday afternoon and evening, causing unsafe travel conditions and several vehicle accidents, according to police.

Cape Girardeau police public information officer Sgt. Rick Schmidt said Saturday there weren’t nearly as many accidents as he had anticipated, when factoring in the forecast.

Between 6:30 p.m. and midnight Friday, 25 motor vehicle accidents were reported within the Cape Girardeau area, Schmidt said. However, that total does not represent the number of vehicles stuck or ones that slid off the road, he said — with nearly 50 reported.

One accident happened Friday on the Diversion Channel bridge, Schmidt said, which was confirmed to be weather-related.

“That Diversion Channel gets slick faster than most other overpasses do,” he said.

Schmidt said even during winter weather, the Cape Girardeau Police Department continues with its regularly scheduled patrols.

Sergeants who are on the road during inclement weather know which areas of town, interstate or overpasses are going to get slick first, Schmidt said.

And those areas are monitored, he said, hoping to “catch an issue before it becomes a bigger issue.”

Schmidt said, “Where folks drive the fastest is where we have the most problems,” adding the state, city and county road crews were “on it” Friday night into Saturday morning.

Sgt. Clark Parrott with the Missouri State Highway Patrol said there were 240 weather-related calls for service reported Friday, along with 39 stranded motorists within the 13 counties of Southeast Missouri covered by Troop E. Thirty-seven crashes also were reported Friday within the region.

“Thirty-four of those were non-injury crashes,” Parrott said. “Three of the 37 had injuries. There were a total of four people injured, with no fatalities.”

Lt. Alex Broch of the Jackson Police Department confirmed by email Saturday that aside from several stalled vehicles, there were no accidents reported in Jackson from when the inclement weather moved into the area Friday.

At 10 a.m. Saturday, the City of Jackson announced its snow route proclamation initiated Friday evening had been lifted.

“The major streets have been substantially cleared by the Street Department and residents and businesses can once again park their vehicles on designated snow routes,” the statement said.

Missouri Department of Transportation district maintenance engineer Tammy Hefner said Saturday that Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Perry and Scott counties got hit “a little hard,” but MoDOT crews have been out, with most roads already cleared by midmorning Saturday.

“All the main roads and back roads should be cleared,” she said. “Our main area we got hit hard in our district was around the Ste. Genevieve and Farmington area.”

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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