Multivehicle crash on icy Interstate 49 kills Rogers man.
SPRINGDALE — A Rogers man died in a multivehicle crash Saturday evening on an icy Interstate 49, according to the Arkansas State Police.
The crash happened while freezing rain was falling at 5:43 p.m. on the Winn Creek Bridge between West Fork and Winslow.
Joseph Palasak, 57, got out of his Honda Pilot after being involved in a crash with several vehicles in the northbound lanes. He was walking toward the rear of his car when a car lost control and slid into him.
Freezing rain and drizzle continued sporadically throughout Northwest Arkansas until early Sunday afternoon.
The National Weather Service in Tulsa reported Fayetteville got almost a quarter of an inch of ice and Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport received 0.15 inches of ice. Some areas had trace amounts of snow. The temperatures didn’t get out of the 20s, and many bridges and streets remained slick all day Sunday.
The Arkansas State Police worked 39 crashes in Benton and Washington counties from Saturday evening through midday Sunday.
Sgt. Shannon Jenkins said
the Benton County sheriff’s office worked seven during the same time frame. City police officers reported 18 crashes in Springdale, eight in Rogers and 23 in Fayetteville.
In Faulkner County, a Bentonville woman died in a car crash in the rain Saturday, according to state police.
Guadalupe Castorena, 25, was driving a Chevrolet Cavalier east on the U.S. 64 Bypass in Vilonia and slowed to turn at a light about 5 p.m., according to a fatality report. She rear-ended a car, and a tractor-trailer hit her car and pushed it off the road. The tractor-trailer cab slid on top of her car, according to the report.
In White County, Kelana Norman, 39, of Des Arc died at 7:04 a.m. Sunday when the 1998 Ford she was driving northbound on Arkansas 11 veered through the southbound lane and stuck a tree, according to a state police report, which said conditions were clear and dry at the time of the crash.