AFTER THE ICY
ROADS THAT CONTRIBUTED TO NUMEROUS CRASHES AND SEVERAL DEATHS, NORTH CAROLINA
HAS TO DEAL WITH FOG. PLEASE DRIVE
SLOWLY AND USE YOUR FOG LIGHTS AS WELL. IT IS BETTER TO DRIVE YOURSELF TO YOUR DESTINATION INSTEAD OF BEING DRIVEN TO A DIFFERENT DESTINATION.
RALEIGH, North Carolina — Triangle school systems
decided Wednesday to open two hours late Thursday because forecasters warned
that lingering drizzle and refreezing could cause ice spots on Triangle roads.
But temperatures stayed at or above freezing.
A fog advisory was issued for Durham, Orange and Chatham
counties by the National Weather Service until 10 a.m. Thursday.
Wake, Durham, Orange, Johnston, Franklin and Granville
county schools planned to open two hours late Thursday. Chapel Hill-Carrboro
and Chatham County schools stayed with their regular schedules.
Icy bridges and interstate ramps where a rash of
accidents happened Wednesday were not recurring Thursday as low temperatures
generally stayed at or just above the freezing mark.
Temperatures were forecast to reach the mid-40s
Thursday.
There could be some rain Thursday evening, but
forecasters were feeling iffy about that and said temperatures should not go
below the low 30s.
“The bulk of model guidance indicates light rain will
develop” in the early evening Thursday and move east across the region, but it
should be gone by 1 a.m. Friday, the National Weather Service said.
“Confidence is lower than normal with regard to whether
or not measurable precipitation will develop,” forecasters at the service’s
Raleigh office said Thursday morning.
Road crews, however, were keeping an eye the0 bridges
and other traditionally icy spots, which contributed to numerous accidents
Wednesday morning and caused school delays and cancellations.
Westbound Interstate 40 near Gorman Street in Raleigh
was closed after a fuel truck owned by the Wake County Public School System
overturned on a bridge, Raleigh police said. Firefighters indicated the truck
was not loaded at the time.
In Chatham County, a tractor-trailer truck ended up
overturned and partially submerged in Jordan Lake after the driver lost control
on the icy eastbound U.S. 64 bridge over the lake. The driver was trying to
avoid an earlier accident that involved another tractor-trailer and a pickup
truck. No one was seriously injured in either accident, but it took hours to
clear the trucks.
In Orange County, a Hillsborough fire pumper slid on ice
and landed on its side off the pavement on Phelps Road. Officials said no one
was hurt in the accident, which happened shortly after 6 a.m.
Bridges were particularly slick on Wednesday. Creedmoor
Road, N.C. 50, was closed where it crosses Falls Lake because of ice on the
bridge, officials said.
A Nash County sheriff’s deputy was one of three people
hurt on U.S. 64 near Red Oak Road when a tractor-trailer smashed into the back
of the deputy’s Dodge Charger patrol car where it was parked on the side of the
road because of an earlier accident.
The State Highway Patrol said Deputy Matthew Joyner, 29,
was taken to a hospital along with Shon Lamont Henderson, 39, of Rocky Mount,
who was sitting in the car with Joyner after his car had slid and crashed.
Neither had life-threatening injuries, troopers said.
The driver of the tractor-trailer, Roosevelt Collins,
67, of Winston-Salem, had minor injuries and was taken to a hospital, Highway
Patrol spokesman Sgt. Michael Baker said. Troopers charged Collins and
Henderson with driving too fast for conditions, Baker said.
One worry that always accompanies ice events did not
materialize, with Duke Energy reporting no outages in the Triangle on Wednesday
morning.