PORT ANGELES — Black Diamond Road turned into a sheet of ice Sunday and was closed for two hours beginning at 5:30 p.m. after several cars slid into ditches and yards.
It was reopened at about 7:30 p.m. after a Clallam County road crew sanded the surface, County Sheriff’s Sgt. Nick Turner said.
That was an emergency response, since the county had no plans to plow any county roads until Tuesday despite the snowfall.
Clallam County road crews are not plowing roads on weekends or holidays — such as Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day — this year because of budget cuts.
The move will save about $150,000 per year in overtime costs for road crews, County Engineer Ross Tyler has said
“It’s crazy,” Michelle Farmer, a resident on Black Diamond Road, said late Sunday.
“The county has no money in its budget.”
Farmer’s problems began Saturday night as snow began to fall.
She was trailering a horse to a barn on Monroe Road when the truck and trailer slid on snow, coming to rest against a guardrail.
“I had to get the horses out and walk them to the barn,” she said.
That was bad enough, she said, but when county snowplows still hadn’t shown up Sunday, the situation deteriorated.
Four inches of snow fell on top of the ice and inch of snow from Saturday, the road in front of their house turned to a skating rink — and her yard became a parking lot.
By 4 p.m. Sunday, there were six cars in ditches within sight of the Farmer family’s house, while two Clallam County sheriff’s deputies struggled to chain their cars and an ambulance threatened to slide into a ditch.
The family had just pushed one car back on the road when Farmer said her daughter spotted another one out her window.
“She yelled, ‘Mom, somebody fell in our yard again,’” Farmer said.
“This corner is always an issue,” she said.
“But today, there was no plowing, no sanding, no nothing. It’s been horrible,” she said.
Thankfully, no one had been hurt, she said.
Cars and trucks continued driving up and down the road, even as deputies were trying to put chains on their car tires.
“Oh, here goes my patrol car,” one deputy said as a truck slipped and slid down Fors Road, approaching his location on Black Diamond Road.
Crews out early today
County crews will be out early today sanding roads, with school bus routes receiving first priority, Tyler said.
Crews will then work their way to smaller outlying roads.
“Due to freezing levels extending down to sea level in most areas, but varying accumulations of snow, most county roads are slippery with hard packed snow,” Tyler wrote in an Monday email.
“In the eastern parts of the county, it appears that snow accumulations were less however drivers should consider the roads to be slick even if bare pavement is visible,” he added.
The county will adjust its plowing and sanding schedules according to the weather, Tyler said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
