March 29, 2024
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Icy roads cause crashes; snow hits County again

MADAWASKA – Steve Plourde, Joshua Golembeski and Greg Duplisee were making fast work Friday of removing snow from a 6,300-square-foot flat roof on Main Street.

Like many other enterprising young people in the St. John Valley, they have been busy this week shoveling snow off roofs straining under the icy weight.

More snow fell Friday, an expected 6 to 12 inches, on top of 36 to 42 inches that hit the area earlier in the week, all interspersed Thursday with rain and freezing rain.

In other parts of the state, snow and ice on roadways Friday afternoon caused numerous accidents, some involving injury, and caused traffic to slow to a crawl as drivers negotiated dangerously slick surfaces.

In the Bangor area, local police and the Maine State Police were called to multiple accidents, as drivers slid off Interstate 95 and traffic backed up on major roads. Emergency and police personnel were so busy that they couldn’t respond to requests for specific information.

Pittsfield accidents

In Pittsfield, light snow over ice caused a series of accidents Friday afternoon that closed Interstate 95 southbound and sent six people to area hospitals.

Maine State Trooper Bruce Scott said the crashes began at 3 p.m. when the wind picked up and it started to snow on wet roads. A 1996 Ford Explorer driven by Charles Blair, 52, of Silver Spring, Md., lost control and slid sideways into the median at the bridge over the Sebasticook River. The car then rolled over at least four times, trapping all four occupants.

Injured were Blair, with back injuries; Rosalie Blair, 48, with serious facial lacerations; Lawrence Charles, 49, with head lacerations; and Robert Davis, 81, also with severe facial lacerations. All were wearing seat belts, said Scott, and “they can attribute their lives to that.”

A nurse, Darlynn Church, 36, of Albion, stopped to render first aid and parked her car on the shoulder, its emergency lights flashing. Her 13-year-old daughter, Crystal Hillman, 13, also of Albion, remained in the front seat of the 2000 Chrysler Concorde.

A third car, operated by Christina Cole, 21, of Woodstock, New Brunswick, lost control and slid sideways into the rear of Church’s car, injuring Hillman, who suffered neck and knee injuries. Seriously injured was a passenger in Cole’s 2004 Chevrolet Impala, Peter Paul, 39, also of Woodstock, with lacerations and a major arm injury, according to police.

Ambulances from Sebasticook Valley Hospital, Clinton and Hartland-St. Albans went to the crash scene, and all of the injured were taken to SVH for treatment. Paul was transferred to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor for surgery, said Scott.

Piscataquis County outage

In Piscataquis County, Central Maine Power Co. customers in Dover-Foxcroft on the Guilford Road and back Sangerville Road lost power at 1:21 p.m. when a woodcutter felled a tree onto the transmission line off Route 7 in Dover-Foxcroft, according to a company representative. Power was expected to be restored by 6:30 p.m.

A dispatcher at the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department reported that several vehicles slid off ice-covered roadways.

More snow in Aroostook

According to meteorologist Duane Wolfe of the National Weather Service’s forecast office in Caribou, the snow was expected to taper off Friday night, but some of the St. John Valley could expect 6 to 12 inches of new snow.

“I can’t really afford to have this done,” said Ken Dionne, owner of the building being cleared of snow. “Coupled with the cost of fuel oil this year, it’s kind of crazy to own a rental building.

“There really isn’t much I can do with all the snow on that flat roof,” he said. “I really don’t know how much that roof can hold.”

Since Monday, homeowners up and down the St. John Valley have been clearing snow, first from driveways and then from the roofs of their homes and buildings.

In the St. John Valley on Friday, brisk winds 10 to 20 mph, with gusts of up to 35 mph, made for nearly blizzard conditions during part of the day.

Temperatures fall

Temperature fell from the 30s on Thursday to the teens Friday morning. Wind chills of nearly 10 degrees below zero were recorded at Frenchville.

Temperatures were expected to drop to near zero by Saturday morning.

Driving conditions were tenuous, at best, on snow-covered roads. Road cleaning crews have been out straight since Sunday.

“We’ve been getting beaten pretty good since Monday,” Yves Lizotte, foreman of the Madawaska Public Works Department, said Friday afternoon. “I’ve had men on the road day and night since Monday morning.

“I have guys that have been putting in 22-hour shifts this week,” he said. “Some of the men have had enough.”

The department was hit with two mishaps during the week. One truck went off the road, and another broke an axle.

More than a dozen cars and trucks slid off iced-over roadways Thursday night and Friday morning, but there were no reports of serious injuries, said Vern Ouellette, director of the Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency.

Far northern Maine recorded a half-inch of ice, less than feared, said Tony Mignone of the NWS office in Caribou.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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