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Freezing rain caused a layer of ice to develop across Lincoln County Friday, resulting in more than 80 vehicle accidents, most of them involving cars skidding off the road. (Ben Kleppinger / ben@theinteriorjournal.com / January 28, 2013) |
STANFORD — Drivers across Lincoln County found themselves in a slippery situation Friday as freezing rain created chaos on many roads.
But despite a huge number of accidents, there were no major injuries reported.
The Lincoln sheriff's office received more than 80 reports of vehicles skidded off the road, Sheriff Curt Folger Said. Out of all of them, there were only a few reports of minor injuries.
"Most of them were just people running off the road at a slow speed," Folger said.
Roads were so icy in Lincoln County that emergency responders weren't immediately able to get to many of the wrecks, Folger said.
"If I had tried to get to where they were at, I probably would have been wrecking myself," he said.
Stanford Sgt. T.J. Hill said things were relatively quiet inside Stanford's city limits, where there weren't really any actual accidents. Some cars apparently skidded off the roads, but the drivers were able to drive back onto the road and leave the scene, he said.
Depot Street was shut down for a period after vehicles had been sliding down its slope, Hill said.
"There were just lots of lucky people," he said. "We were really pretty lucky in town."
Some slick spots in the county caused multiple wrecks in the same area, and there were accidents where vehicles skidded off the road and collided with other vehicles that had already done the same thing.
While working one accident in the Preachersville area, Folger said he witnessed another accident occur just down the road.
"That's not unusual when you're out in areas like that," he said. "Thank God there wasn't anyone hurt seriously."
