First winter storm blasts County

MADAWASKA – Northern Maine awoke to snow-covered lawns and slushy, slippery byways Friday morning. Police reported scores of accidents in the season’s first significant snowfall.

Vehicles were sliding off roads and into ditches on Routes 1, 11, 161, and 163, mostly north of the Presque Isle-Caribou line.

By late morning, seven inches of snow had fallen in Madawaska, Fort Kent and Van Buren, and it kept accumulating. Predictions were that the area would receive 10 inches or more by the time the storm was done.

Drivers were not cautious in the moisture-laden, slippery snow. Police and wrecker operators could not keep up with the onslaught.

A coffee shop owner reported 18 vehicles off the road between Madawaska and Van Buren on Route 1 before 9 a.m. A tractor-trailer was off Route 11 at Soucy Hill and traffic was snarled.

“Oh my God,” a Maine State Police dispatcher at Houlton said when asked if anything was going on early Friday morning.

Another police dispatcher said, “People are being people, and they seem to forget how to drive in the snow.”

The Caribou Police Department and the Maine State Police seemed to be the busiest of all police agencies. Caribou police said they had more than 20 motor vehicle incidents, and the state police reported 29 cases. Fort Kent had 10, Madawaska had three and Van Buren had one car off the road.

Limestone had a serious rollover accident, but police were still at the scene at 5 p.m. No details on the incident were available.

Galen Costigan, regional manager for the northern region of the Maine Department of Transportation, said some crews started road maintenance as early as 1 a.m. Friday.

“Caribou north, the crews are all out,” he said. “It’s been real bad through Fort Kent and Van Buren where they have a lot of snow.

“Our crews are getting ahead of it now [about 1 p.m.],” he said. “People are just driving too fast and this snow is kind of slimy, real greasy and the melting snow is causing hydroplaning.”

The area had had snow squalls election night, but accumulations were visible only at higher elevations. It was the same during the day Wednesday, but without any accumulations. Friday morning was the real thing.

Mark Bloomer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Caribou, said the storm was a combination of two systems – one from Ontario, the other from the mid-Atlantic states.

“They sort of combined in the Gulf of Maine, created a low pressure and intensified during the night,” Bloomer said Friday afternoon. “The precipitation, rain in southern areas, became snow inland and became steadier and more intense in the northeast corner of Maine.

“It should wind down through the afternoon. Snow should stop by early evening,” he said. “It will taper off through the rest of the day.”

Warm ground temperatures, still at 37 degrees in northern Maine, could melt some of the snow as it falls, the meteorologist said.