Snowy weather a factor in area roadway crashes
The Daily Inter Lake
Severe weather was a factor in dozens of crashes and slide-ins reported Friday and Saturday to law-enforcement agencies from across the Flathead Valley.
As of press time Saturday, none were fatal, and few of the people involved were seriously injured.
Roads made slick from steadily falling snow is thought to have contributed to many of the reported wrecks. More than 3 inches of snow fell in the Kalispell area Saturday and an additional 6 inches is expected by tonight, according to the National Weather Service office in Missoula. The Flathead and Mission valleys are under a winter storm warning until 5 p.m. today.
Stormy weather is expected to continue throughout most of the week as a series of systems move through the area, said Bridget De Rosa, a hydro-meteorological technician with the National Weather Service.
"We're in a very active pattern, so we're pretty much just getting one right after the other," she said. "There's nothing to stop them, so they just keep coming on in."
Flathead County sheriff's deputies and Montana Highway Patrol troopers were dispatched to about 30 crashes throughout the county Friday and Saturday.
In Hungry Horse, a 14-year-old boy towing another person behind his four-wheeler reportedly ran a red light on Canyon Drive and was struck by a vehicle traveling on U.S. 2. He was taken by ALERT helicopter to Kalispell Regional Medical Center.
A car - later reported stolen from a bar on U.S. 2 and Montana 40 - was found after a rollover crash near Glacier Park International Airport. No one was near the vehicle when emergency personnel arrived.
Slide-ins were reported on Montana 40, Halfmoon Road, Willow Glen Drive, and U.S. 93. A tractor-trailer ran off the road on U.S. 2 near Marion and a car crashed into a fence after sliding off U.S. 2 near Bad Rock Canyon. Three cars were involved in a wreck on U.S. 93 near Happy Valley. No one was seriously injured.
The Kalispell Police Department responded to a three-car pileup on U.S. 93 just south of Hutton Ranch Plaza at about 1:45 p.m. Saturday. Two of the cars involved were extensively damaged, but no one suffered serious injuries. The wreck tied up traffic for about an hour.
Officers also responded to a slide-in on West Wyoming Street and crashes on U.S. 93 South and the intersection of First Avenue West and Center Street. A car thought to have been accidentally left in "drive" collided with another vehicle in the parking lot of a Third Avenue East North convenience store.
At least six noninjury crashes and slide-ins were reported to the Whitefish Police Department on Friday and Saturday, and the Columbia Falls Police Department responded to at least four noninjury crashes, including one where a vehicle and a four-wheeler plowing snow collided.
Temperatures were rising in the Pacific Northwest, which has been pummeled by deep snow.
In Portland, a couple inches of rain through Saturday was expected to wash away much of the 19 inches of snow that by one measurement had made December the city's snowiest month since January 1950.
"Once we start to see rain, it'll really melt down," weather service meteorologist Charles Dalton said. "It would be a good wager to say it's going to be gone by the end of the weekend."
In Seattle, meteorologist Johnny Burg was optimistic there wouldn't be any major flooding in Western Washington on Saturday despite higher temperatures and melting snow that fell during the week before Christmas Day.
In Eastern Washington, from 4 to 7 inches of new snow fell overnight in the Spokane area, where it began snowing a week before Christmas.
- Reporting by the Associated Press contributed to this story.