Scurry County starts to thaw after winter storm

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First responders, TxDOT, local businesses weather the snow

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  • Pictured (l-r), Audrey Herrley, Patsy Hart and Aven Herrley made the bravest snow women baker. She stays cool outside while the oven is hot.
    Pictured (l-r), Audrey Herrley, Patsy Hart and Aven Herrley made the bravest snow women baker. She stays cool outside while the oven is hot.
  • Pictured (l-r), Jaxon West and Jaden West built a baseball snowman in their front yard in Snyder.
    Pictured (l-r), Jaxon West and Jaden West built a baseball snowman in their front yard in Snyder.
  • Snyder’s Green family poses with the snow family they built. Pictured (l-r) are Gryffon Green, Gideon Green, Jaxson Green, Boston Green and Torron Green.
    Snyder’s Green family poses with the snow family they built. Pictured (l-r) are Gryffon Green, Gideon Green, Jaxson Green, Boston Green and Torron Green.
  • Snow covers a tree at a local home.
    Snow covers a tree at a local home.
  • Pictured, snow covers a row of four-wheelers at Hurst Farm Supply in Snyder.
    Pictured, snow covers a row of four-wheelers at Hurst Farm Supply in Snyder.
  • Local resident Ruthie Pittman Brown measured 10 inches of snow in her yard.
    Local resident Ruthie Pittman Brown measured 10 inches of snow in her yard.
  • Snow covers the ground in Snyder Cemetery.
    Snow covers the ground in Snyder Cemetery.
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Although no additional precipitation was recorded in Scurry County overnight Thursday into Friday, what had already fallen did not diminish overnight — temperatures dipped below freezing and were still in the 20s as late as 10 a.m. this morning.
Local law enforcement officials were still busy, but not as busy as they were Wednesday and Thursday.
“It’s been a little hectic, as you can imagine,” said Sheriff Trey Wilson. “(Motorists getting stuck) are pretty frequent. Kind of slowing down now, it seems like. The conditions are getting a little better. 
While the sheriff’s department had worked quite a few motorist assist requests, Wilson said very few of them were actual accidents involving damaged property.
“We’ve had very few actual accidents,” he said. “(Wednesday) morning we had already had 41 motorist assists. It’s busy, we’re running, but we haven’t had any major accidents. The majority of them are people sliding off the road or stopping and can’t get going again.”
The calls slowed down throughout the day Thursday.
“The calls coming in have slowed down tremendously, so that tells us that road conditions are improving,” Wilson said. “We’ve been fortunate. Lots of the (wrecks) we’ve had have just been fender benders. It’s low speed impacts, because obviously people aren’t moving real fast. I think we’re on the upswing.”
Paramedic Russel Thomas of Scurry County EMS said they have only received a few weather-related medical calls.
“It’s made it harder for us to get around, but we haven’t had a whole lot of weather-related calls,” he said. “Unless there was someone injured, we weren’t called to wrecks and stuff. If they just slid off the road, then we didn’t go. We’ve only had one weather-related accident that we went to. That was it, really. One weather-related call, and all the rest of it was just our normal, everyday calls. (It’s) just hard to get to them. Other than being cold and hard to get around, (our days) haven’t changed much.”
Fire Chief Perry Westmoreland agreed that motorist assists calls were the main concern during the snow days.
“We just kind of patrolled around (Wednesday) and, yes, we pulled multiple people out of ditches just to kind of get them on their way and keep them from being in danger from other vehicles coming by,” he said. “I myself probably did 15 to 18, and we had four or five trucks out doing it, so there were a lot.”
Westmoreland confirmed that there weren’t many actual wrecks associated with the snow.
“Very few people actually hit anything,” he said. “Most folks, it was just a matter of sliding off the road. Some people did hit fences and trees, and of course there were some that actually hit other vehicles, but for the most part, it was just winding up in the ditch and then unable to get out.”
Rising temperatures and melting snow eased the problems drivers were having staying on the road.
“We haven’t had near as big a problem (Thursday),” Westmoreland said. “We had some early (Thursday) morning, but pretty well by, I don’t know, 10 o’clock or so, as the temperature came up, the accidents just stopped. We got a little sunshine on the pavement and got it to dry out a little, and hopefully that will make things much better.”
Tanya Brown, public information officer with the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) Abilene office, said the sheer amount of snowfall caught TxDOT by surprise.
“Monday we started pre-treating the roadways, because we expected we would get some snow in the area,” said Brown. 
“We ended up getting sleet, and then snow on top of that. Obviously, that made some roadways slick because of the sleet. So Tuesday morning, we went to 24-hour shifts and we opened up our emergency operations center. We did not expect it to be so widespread, and the amount of accumulation.”
TxDOT has been working hard since Wednesday to clear the roadways, with Interstate 20 being the priority, she said. 
“I-20 was extremely packed with snow, so obviously (Wednesday) we focused on I-20,” Brown said. “That’s going to be one of our Tier 1 roadways. (Thursday) we are focusing on treating and clearing our Tier 2, which is going to be our U.S. roadways, and then Tier 3, which is farm-to-market roadways. Obviously, safety is our number-one priority. Safety for the traveling public.”
Several surrounding TxDOT offices provided extra assistance, she added.
“We are using more than 100 employees per each shift, and we also received assistance from other districts: Fort Worth, Amarillo, San Angelo and Brownwood,” Brown said. “They brought personnel along with equipment so that we could handle this.”
While many local businesses were closed Wednesday, Snyder’s Wal-Mart and United Supermarket remained open.
Wal-Mart manager Avan Ceballos said some people came in to purchase snow-related items, but business was slow during the storm.
“Oh yeah. I can’t give you any figures or anything like that, but winter wear, the salt, ice melt. Snow gloves and hats,” he said. “We really appreciate all the associates that came in. They really pulled together as a team and did the best we could. I appreciate the patience of the customers that did make it in.”
United service manager Jessie Edwards said United’s parking lot was clear and business was not too affected by the snow.
“I would say it was a pretty normal day,” she said. “We had a company come in, a snow services company to plow the snow. We were open all day Wednesday. We made it a point to have our managers available to pick up team members and get them to and from work. Obviously we were pretty short staffed all day, but we made it work with a positive attitude to keep our guests fed. It was rough, for sure.” 
Most of United’s customers were seeking warmth, whether through good hot food or heater fuel, she said.
“When cold weather hits, we always sell the usual: chili, soup, hot chocolate, lots and lots of propane, firewood.” 
Although most businesses were open today, the weather continued to impact government operations on Friday.
City of Snyder offices were open and Western Texas College and Hermleigh and Ira ISDs had late openings, but several other entities remained closed for a third day.
Snyder Independent School District, which is dealing with a flu outbreak in addition to the winter weather, elected to remain closed today, but will re-open Monday, according to a message from Superintendent Dr. Eddie Bland. 
Snyder Christian School also remained closed today.
Scurry County offices remained closed Friday and will re-open Monday. According to County Judge Dan Hicks, the county has a policy of following Snyder ISD’s lead on weather closings. 
As always, though, county emergency services — including EMS — operated as normal.