The first snow of the season brought traffic headaches to Johnson County on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
According to the National Weather Service’s Kansas City field office in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, most of the metro received between one and three inches of snow.
Heavier totals were found to the east and west, with Lawrence reporting four inches and eastern Jackson County, Missouri, reporting five inches.
Even with many cities pretreating roads last week with salt brine and again overnight with rock salt, roads quickly deteriorated Saturday morning as the snow piled up, making driving conditions hazardous, particularly around midday.
According to the various police department call logs in Johnson County, officers and sheriff’s deputies responded to more than 60 crashes, four involving non-life-threatening injuries, and 55 motorists in need of assistance across the county between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturday. These numbers do not include calls from the Kansas Highway Patrol.
Some of the biggest problems were found on U.S. 69 Highway near 119th Street in Overland Park, where a crash involved as many as eight vehicles on the northbound side.
Southbound traffic was stalled for more than 20 minutes after a car slid off into a guard rail, causing all traffic to stop. Vehicles then had a difficult time restarting due to ice on the bridge over 119th Street.
Further south, police and sheriff’s deputies closed the northbound lanes of Interstate 35 from 175th Street near Gardner to 159th Street in Olathe. Multiple vehicles had slid off the highway into the grass medians and shoulders there.
A tractor-trailer got stuck on the flyover ramp from westbound Interstate 435 to southbound Interstate 35 and blocked both lanes.
Overland Park Police also closed the flyover ramp connecting southbound US-69 to eastbound I-435 due to icy conditions.
