Heavy snow crosses Oklahoma, northeast corner hit hardest

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Heavy snow crosses Oklahoma, northeast corner hit hardest

BY JARREL WADE World Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
5/30/12 at 6:48 AM

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Get continuing coverage of the weather in Tulsa and watch videos and slideshows from the storm.

Tulsa World Weather: Stay updated on the latest forecast with complete coverage from the Weather Channel.

A new layer of snow covered a large part of the state with some areas near Grand Lake buried under an additional 2 feet of snow, officials said.

In Tulsa, 5.7 inches of snow had accumulated by noon, according to the National Weather Service.

About 23 inches of snow fell near Jay, said Delaware County Emergency Management Director Richard Real. About 17 inches fell in Grove, 16 inches in Eucha and 15 inches in West Siloam Springs.

"The whole county is a white-out," Real said Wednesday morning. "We already helped 14 motorists."

Oklahoma 59 from Kansas, Okla. to Grove is impassable, he said. Emergency crews are driving about 15 mph trying to get to stranded motorists, he said.

In Bartlesville, schools and offices shut down as more than 15 inches of snow fell, bringing more work for weary road crews and excitement for local firefighters who delivered a baby for parents who were unable to make the drive to the hospital.

Road crews began working around the clock on Tuesday night to plow streets in the Bartlesville area. Officials say clearing the snow from this week’s storm is complicated by the large amounts of wintry mix left behind from last week’s blizzard.

“The city crews are out working hard, but it’s a matter of where do you put it,” said Melissa Pitner, Washington County Emergency Management public information officer. “The sides of the road are already piled with the snow from last week.”

Bartlesville is continuing a system initiated during the blizzard where snow plows coordinate with emergency vehicles on responding to 911 calls. The system worked well for Bartlesville Fire Department, which delivered a baby girl at 8:11 a.m.

Bartlesville Firefighter Mike Remington delivered the baby – a girl named Lindsey Nicole. Bartlesville Fire Chief Bob Hasbrook couldn't give the last name of the parents or baby due to medical privacy laws.

“They had called and weren’t going to be able to get to the hospital,” Hasbrook said. “It was 15 minutes from the time the mother’s water broke until the time she delivered. It was just that fast. This was her second child.

Everything went well. We had the report come over the radio ‘We have a crying baby girl’.”

Bartlesville Ambulance Service arrived at the westside home right after the baby was born and took mother and child safely to Jane Phillips Medical Center, Hasbrook said.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers also learned lessons from last week's blizzard, a spokesman said.

No major wrecks have been reported, and troopers in most counties, including those northeast of Tulsa that have received nearly 2 feet of snow, are faring well, said OHP Lt. George Brown.

“We just learned a lot from our events last week, and from those experiences, we’ve kind of tweaked our technique,” Brown said.

The Highway Patrol established a joint operations center in Oklahoma City with the National Guard to coordinate their responses across the state, and Brown said troopers worked closely with the soldiers to share resources and manpower on Oklahoma’s highways.

Brown said the Humvees the National Guard uses are better at getting around on snow-packed roads than the trooper’s patrol cars are.

“Clearance is the big issue with us,” he said. “The National Guard people are very eager to work with us, and we’re fortunate to have them. We work very well together.”

“We knew the weather was coming in; we utilized more assets,” Brown said. “We assigned Humvees to various areas, with concentrations on the turnpikes. It seemed to work real well.”

Tulsa troopers requested a Humvee from a National Guard unit in Bristow that is patrolling the Tulsa metro area with a trooper, he said.

Troopers are also using four-wheel-drive vehicles usually used by the OHP Lake Patrol and Bomb Squad units, Brown said.

In downtown Tulsa, the morning commute was fairly smooth as front loaders worked to clear the main streets.

Other city roads are driveable, said Tulsa police Officer Jason Willingham, although officials are warning people to stay home if at all possible.

"The roads are a lot better than they were the last blizzard," Willingham said. "I came in from the north, and it's very snow-packed obviously, but it's not to the point you can't get through.

"As long as people slow down and increase their distance from other cars, they should be fine."

Willingham said police responded to a few collisions overnight, but 911 calls for police have been light.

From midnight to noon on Wednesday, EMSA crews stayed busy, responding to 87 calls and transporting 46 patients to local hospitals, a spokesman said.

Paul Strizek, Tulsa city streets spokesman, said crews have gone directly from clearing streets left from last week's storm to clearing streets for this storm.

The city of Tulsa received newly ordered salt on Monday and has plenty on hand to deal with this latest storm, Strizek said.

Like last week’s record snow, this snow is very dry and powdery so street crews are running smoothly but fighting an uphill battle while the storm moves overhead, Strizek said.

“It’s easy to get out of the road, but unfortunately, it’s easy for it to blow back in the road,” he said.

The additional number of private contractors hired to assist Tulsa Public Works crews should improve the timing of clearing major streets, said Bob Bledsoe, city spokesman.

Crews have been plowing then salting the roads to prevent freezing, he said.

They also are concentrating an effort in south Tulsa with a focus on the hilly roads, he said.

Bledsoe said the salt supplies are abundant, and more has been ordered, noting 500 tons of the 6,000 ordered has been received.

Trash collection has been delayed to wait for the weather to subside, he said.

Bledsoe said that it is unlikely that the all of the trash collection will be completed today. For customers who haven't had trash service, crews will attempt to do it on Thursday or Friday, he said.

Street crews are prioritizing main roadways to allow as much travel as possible, but drivers will have to be aware of their car’s capabilities and their driving capabilities, he said.

Most flights out of Tulsa International Airport had been canceled through about 9 a.m. this morning, according to the airport's website.

One flight came in at 10:30 a.m., but officials are waiting for visibility to improve. Crews were able to keep the runways clear.

For flight information, check tulsaairports.com.

Tulsa County officials reported the Tulsa County Courthouse will be closed today.

In Claremore, all non-essential city offices closed Wednesday, municipal spokeswoman Cassie Woods said.

In Vinita, dispatcher Bobby Snider said emergency personnel had responded to one stranded motorist by 8 a.m. Wednesday. Unofficial snowfall totals in the area were being reported at between 7 and 9 inches.

Officials in the Mayes County Sheriff’s Office are reporting snow 12 to 14 inches deep, with snow drifts 5 to 6 feet deep.

Snow depths of up to 2 feet are being reported in Osage County, with drifts approaching 6 feet, said Kathy Castro, a dispatcher with the Osage County Sheriff’s Office.

U.S. 60 is “not movable” and closed from Ponca City to Vinita, she said.

“Thankfully, we’re getting calls from people asking if they should get on the road, and we are urging them not to,” Castro said.

The sheriff’s office has received several calls of stranded motorists, some of whom have been taken into nearby houses for shelter, she said.

Ponca City reported more than 12 inches of fresh snow Wednesday morning, leaving roads impassable with drifts reaching 2 feet deep. Most residents can't get out of their driveways.

It took several days for crews to clear Ponca streets after last week's snow storm, when Kay County received only 8 inches.

"This is going to be worse," said Paula Cain, director of the city's emergency management. "This is the most snow I've ever seen."

Plows and sand trucks will continue working round-the-clock, she said.

A Broken Arrow public works employee was treated and released at a local hospital after the sand truck he was operating tipped over into a ditch, police said.

The accident happened around 4 a.m. Wednesday on 129th East Avenue near 121st Street.

Police said the entire vehicle fell into the ditch on its side.

The driver was not injured.

Crews worked for more than an hour to pull out the vehicle.

Owasso Fire Chief Bradd Clark said the fire department expanded its staff by four in anticipation of the storm, which added about eight more inches to the 21-inch total of last week.

At the three fire stations, heavy, sure-footed grass rigs are on stand by to clear a path for ambulances on call, he said. By mid-morning, no weather-related emergencies had been reported, Clark said.

“People are better prepared this time to heed the warning,” he said. “This kind of snow is more of what we’re accustomed to. It’s drier and not as deep.”

At least four trucks delivering medical supplies got stuck this past week as they made deliveries among the 28 hospitals in four states for the Sisters of Mercy Health System.

Most of the deliveries arrived without any trouble, said Scott Nelson, vice president of Resource Optimization and Innovation, which is the company managing and moving supplies across Mercy’s four-state service area.

However, the drivers battling the elements found themselves walking a mile or more to shelter, sleeping in their cabs until the weather let up or working for hours in the cold loading supplies into a truck.

“Our drivers were real heroes during this weather crisis," Nelson said in a press release.

"They put themselves in peril on treacherous roads to make sure patients didn’t go without needed supplies. We’re incredibly fortunate because everyone was safe and all orders were met.”

In Carthage, Mo., a farmer helped a stalled driver get a truck out of a snow landing.

One driver delivering supplies from Fort Smith, Ark., was stranded for three days after his truck became stuck.

Another driver drove 5 to 10 mph for hours on icy roads between Oklahoma City and Springfield, Mo., for a delivery.

The trucks carry pharmaceuticals, surgical supplies and medical equipment.

“Leaders throughout Mercy recognize the potential for supply delays with these storms and prepare by bulking up orders before the storms hit,” Nelson said. "On Jan. 31, we had the heaviest order filling day in our history."

Mercy includes 28 hospitals, more than 200 outpatient facilities, 36,000 co-workers and 1,300 integrated physicians in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Snowfall totals as of 12:30 p.m. today:

Delaware County (4 miles south of Jay): 25 inches

Pawhuska (Osage County): 18 inches

Bartlesville (Washington County): 13 inches

Pryor (Mayes County): 12 inches

Claremore (Rogers County): 9 inches

Collinsville (Tulsa County): 8.5 inches

Owasso: 6.5 inches

Broken Arrow: 6 to 6.5 inches

Tulsa: 5.7 inches (as of noon today)

Catoosa: 4 inches

Jenks: 3 inches

Source: National Weather Service

Michael Overall, Sheila Stogsdill, Rhett Morgan, Susan Hylton and Jerry Wofford contributed to this report.

Associated Images:

Allie Blair walks on South Evanston Ave. just south of East 11th Street as she heads to the University of Tulsa in the snow Feb. 9, 2011. Blair works at the school and is also a student. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

Traffic drives in the snow on East 11th Street just East of S. Tucker Drive near the University of Tulsa in the snow Feb. 9, 2011. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

Jim Swan, owner of Swan Construction, fills up and clears his wipers at a QuikTrip near 71st and Riverside in Tulsa, OK, as he prepares to head to work to try and get something done at a job site in spite of the weather in the pre-dawn hours. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World

Employees with Venture Properties try to keep ahead of this snow storm and plow the parking lot of a strip center at 41st & Peoria in Brookside in the pre-dawn hours in Tulsa. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World

Abraham Gutierrez with Yard Vark, a Tulsa landscpaing company, applies ice melt after clearing the walkway outside the Starbucks coffee shop on Brookside in Tulsa, OK Feb. 9, 2011. Gutierrez started work at 4:30am and this is the second location he has worked before 7am. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World

TU student Kate Stuppy trudges through the snow as she walks south along Delaware at 5th street to get a free breakfast on campus in Tulsa. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World

A stuck car gets a successful push at 11th and Peoria during rush hour in Tulsa. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World

Grounds crews clear the apron of snow near an American Airlines plane at Tulsa International Airport. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

A list of cancled departures due to the snow at Tulsa International Airport. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World