Accidents pile up on state’s slippery roads

Back to reality.

After a spell of mild weather and clear lawns, snow returned to Maine on Monday, causing numerous accidents and reminding people that winter is still alive and kicking.

A dispatcher for Penobscot County said early Monday evening that between noon and 5:30 p.m., 114 accident calls came in across the county, but none was considered serious.

Thirty-eight of those accidents happened in Bangor, according to Lt. Jeff Millard of the Bangor Police Department.

A frustrated Maine State Police dispatcher said earlier Monday afternoon that calls were backed up and on hold.

“No one’s leaving anytime soon,” the dispatcher quipped.

The storm arrived Monday morning and hit the Bangor area around noon, dumping 2 to 3 inches of wet snow over a two-hour period, a National Weather Service meteorologist said.

Total amounts for Bangor as of late Monday evening were about 4 inches for Bangor and the same for Ellsworth. The coastal and northernmost regions of the state were not expected to see as much precipitation – only about 2 inches.

“We were calling for a weather advisory as of last night,” meteorologist Vic Nouhan said late Monday, “so people shouldn’t have been surprised. It wasn’t a big storm, but it was strong for a brief period.”

Nouhan said the snow would continue into the early evening hours before tapering off, but for a long stretch Monday afternoon, the snow was a nightmare for motorists.

A tractor-trailer slid off the road shortly after noon on Route 9 in Clifton. About a half-hour later, the same thing happened on Route 69 in Newburgh, causing traffic delays in both areas. Around 2 p.m., a school bus was reported off the road on Route 1A in Winterport.

Other accidents with minor injuries were reported in Hermon, Hampden, Orrington and Carmel.

A cluster of noontime accidents without injuries also was reported in Newport, Plymouth, Detroit, Cornville and Pittsfield.

On Interstate 95 in Pittsfield, a 2003 Nissan pickup driven by Frankie Parks, 35, of St. Albans lost traction on the overpass by Exit 150 and struck the guardrails, spun and left the road and hit some trees, according to Maine State Trooper Christopher Carr.

Parks, who was pregnant, received facial and arm injuries and was taken by Hartland-St. Albans Ambulance to Sebasticook Valley Hospital. Parks’ husband, Michael Parks, 38, was not injured. Both were wearing seat belts, according to police.

At the scene of his third accident in less than one hour, Carr said the roads were quite slippery.

Meanwhile, Newport police were called to five accidents within minutes of each other. At the first – and second – an accident at the intersection of Route 7 and Williams Road caused a second accident when cars waiting in line for the road to be cleared crashed into each other.

Several schools dismissed students early, and many more canceled after-school activities. In addition, many evening meetings and social functions were postponed or canceled.

Bangor International Airport experienced only minor delays on some flights but no cancellations.

The snow came just as people were beginning to wonder just how mild this winter might turn out to be as weather has been unseasonably warm and snowfall has been lacking.

For the season, the Bangor area has seen approximately 23 inches of snowfall, which is more than a foot below average. Before Monday, Portland had received just 4 inches of snow in January, which is 11 inches below normal and 22 inches below the snowfall total last year at this time.

Nouhan reminded that those numbers could come back up.

“All it takes is one big storm,” he said. “It doesn’t take long for snow to pile up in Maine.”