MILTON, W.Va. — Typically when you leave for work on April 22 you don’t expect to need to keep an eye out for icy road conditions. However, Mother Nature pulled a fast one on a lot of unsuspecting motorists travelling through Cabell County Thursday morning and the result was costly for a few and a headache for many.
“I think there was in total seven crashes and three or four people transported to the hospital by ambulance,” said Milton Police Chief Joe Parsons.
His night shift officers seemed to be enjoying a quiet shift until about 4 a.m. when things suddenly took a severe turn.
“Apparently sometime around four or five o’clock we had some freezing rain, the bridges started icing up and we started having accidents,” Parsons explained.
“In about 30 minutes time the fire chief told me they responded to four rollover accidents in about 30 minutes,” he said.
Those all happened within a mile of the Milton exit and created havoc on I-64 in both directions. The interstate was closed between Milton and Barboursville to allow for the wreckage to be cleared away and for the Division of Highways to get crews to the scene to put salt down on the roadways.
The detour created an even bigger mess as both directions of Interstate traffic was forced onto narrow U.S. Route 60 for several miles.
Parsons said there was no warning and no weather report he had seen indicated the possibility of icy roadways as part of the cold front which passed through and delivered enough snow in the region on Wednesday to coat the ground. Forecasters anticipated the cold weather would linger through the weekend, but more seasonal temperatures are forecast to return next week.