Virginia’s response to I-95 storm pitiful
The perfect storm that for 24 hours paralyzed the East Coast’s most congested highway south of Washington this week was matched by a horrifically imperfect response by Virginia transportation and public safety agencies.
Defensive officials, including Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, are unpersuasive in insisting they were simply outmatched by the intensity of the snowfall and the speedy accumulation of ice. In fact, the National Weather Service had predicted a very heavy storm — one that justified either closing down the highway before disaster struck or intensively pre-positioning emergency and state police resources.
In the event, hundreds of motorists were stuck in their cars overnight and for much of Tuesday along a hilly segment of highway notorious for gridlock on ordinary dry and sunny days. Inexcusably, many drivers saw no help — no police, no tow trucks, no emergency vehicles — even as they ran low on gasoline, water and food in subfreezing temperatures.
At the very moment that people needed their government’s urgent assistance, they felt abandoned. Stranded motorists said they received no push notifications from the authorities on their phones until Tuesday morning — after many had sat snowbound on the highway for a dozen hours or more.
Problem No. 1 was a failure of communication. Virginia’s Department of Transportation said its messaging, urging drivers to stay off the roads ahead of the storm, was clear and consistent. But how visible, audible and urgent were those messages? Were warnings transmitted visually, on electronic billboards, at busy entrance ramps? Were they broadcast promptly starting Sunday, when the National Weather Service warned that the storm might dump several inches of snow in the D.C. area?
Granted, closing down an artery as critical as I-95 is a drastic measure, and a staggering inconvenience to thousands of people. But in this storm, the alternative scenario — a survivalist nightmare — was no less drastic, and even more staggeringly inconvenient to those who made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It is something of a miracle that no deaths or serious injuries were reported given that some motorists were unable to extricate themselves overnight and were subjected to freezing temperatures, extreme stress and sleeplessness.
Government cannot be expected to predict the future, prevent every mishap, or prepare for every eventuality. But when the threat is as banal, recurrent and well understood as the winter weather, contingency planning should focus on addressing — and avoiding — the worst disasters. If that means erring on the side of excessive caution, then so be it
Some legislation might also help sidestep a similar future cataclysm — specifically, a bill that would prohibit tractor trailers from using any but the right-hand lane in the event of significant snowfall. That measure is already being discussed by lawmakers. It appears to make sense given that jackknifed tractor trailers appeared to be a major factor in the cascading events on I-95 this week.
State transportation officials have apologized and promised an “exhaustive” review. Let it also be transparent, both in examining the shortcomings of the state response and ways to ensure it does not happen again.