I-80 Poconos area in Pennsylvania...stranded vehicles

Not a good day to travel anywhere in the northeast, from the weather network perspective.

Fixed clicky

Meanwhile in the Burlington, Vermont area, we got maybe two inches of snow and the roads are clear and easily drivable.

I don't get it. I live in the foothills of the Sierras, near Lake Tahoe. In the past 48 hours we have had over 4 feet of snow on the two major interstates; US50 and US80. Both have remained open other than for a couple hours at a time to clear all the snow. We are talking elevation changes of over 7,000' to get over these summits. How is it that California, for crissakes, can keep their roads open and the folks back East are in a disaster when they get more than a few inches??
Yesterday I drove to a ski resort that was on wind hold, whiteout conditions, but the highways still chugging along. Finally got to ski though!

Yes, that's ice on the beard;



(EDIT: Scaled image width.)

Usually the eastern states do better than that, too. It's uncommon for the major highways like interstates to close, and rarer still for them to remain closed for too long. I guess the problems in this case may be compounded by a semi truck or two wedged sideways across the road, and maybe in a location or position such that recovery is really difficult.

Sometimes it's not the amount of snow that makes the biggest difference, but its consistency and temperature. An inch or two of slushy snow that then freezes into ice is rather more treacherous than a foot of powder.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that the Pennsylvania DOT is in any way covering themselves in glory here!

We're no strangers to ice and snow and I-80 is legendary for wild weather swings.

We don't get bent out of shape for a few hours delay here and there.

But this is the 3rd MAJOR stranding of motorists on a limited access roadway I can recall in the past 2yrs or so. 16+ hours on the Turnpike TWICE in the past 2 years and now this one on I-80.

Without getting political or anything that makes this warning to fellow members get deleted, I can say the "response" to these situations is one that definitely puts travelers in significant danger.

Do you have enough fuel to idle your vehicle for 24hrs? What about food, water, bathrooms? Kids, pets? Bitter cold?

As more of our fellow RV'ers are heading out and planning routes through our state, it is definitely worth sounding the warning to avoid this trouble spot right now.

I am having trouble getting an up to date status on the situation. Almost like it is a "secret"

If anyone has a link or resource for current status, please share it.

I talked with some buddies, we're considering heading Northwest and violating some "traffic laws" to get people out of there.

In many cases you will find a semi-truck in the beginning of the pileup or a stupid car driver leading the pack. Most times speed and the lack of common sense being the major contributing factors, not to mention the weather conditions. Once the road is plugged full of vehicles there isn't much the snowplows can do until all that mess is cleared out.

Take note of where I live, the snow capital of PA.

As a past resident of the area, I have friends living in the immediate area who have no power at their homes, as a result of long runs of power poles SNAPPED clean off at ground level, due to winds were up to 90 MPH . If anybody had the mistaken impression that this is just some typical winter storm that was mismanaged by all the evil state and local bureaucrats, it isn't that simple. When the giant noreaster hit the D.C area during the Obama years, and the city was closed for nearly a week, I spent 30 hours stuck and crawling on rt 81 in VA. What I learned in that mess is that much of the issue is caused by clueless, incompetent truck drivers. Traveling the entire Shenandoah Valley, I got to see hundreds and hundreds of class eight trucks crashed. Any attempt to get anything accomplished to clear a blockage in the road ONLY happened when the VA state police would go from cab to cab and tell each trucker to hold, move forward, yield to the plows etc....Otherwise some of these fools seemed to think that the best way forward was full speed ahead, until they were crashed in the medians or over the sides, and twisted up in big tangles on climbs. I really believe that, absent the truck traffic, 90% of the problems would never of happened.
Even if the majority of truckers on the road are competent professionals, there is a significant minority that haven't got a clue, and little experience with operating in a blizzard. On a major trucking corridor with tens of thousands of rigs a day heading in and out of the NYC and New England markets, a significant blizzard, with hurricane winds, is always going to be ugly.

It would seem to me, that the authorities, knowing that the pattern is repeated over and over with truckers on major routes during winter storms, would shut them down to the truckers. That's what we do here in California. The Highway Patrol and Department of Transportation holds all trucks from the California/Nevada state line to the East and the 2,000' elevation to the West until the weather improves.
No, the truckers don't like it, but they expect it and can plan for it because it's the policy.

soren wrote:
As a past resident of the area, I have friends living in the immediate area who have no power at their homes, as a result of long runs of power poles SNAPPED clean off at ground level, due to winds were up to 90 MPH . If anybody had the mistaken impression that this is just some typical winter storm that was mismanaged by all the evil state and local bureaucrats, it isn't that simple. When the giant noreaster hit the D.C area during the Obama years, and the city was closed for nearly a week, I spent 30 hours stuck and crawling on rt 81 in VA. What I learned in that mess is that much of the issue is caused by clueless, incompetent truck drivers. Traveling the entire Shenandoah Valley, I got to see hundreds and hundreds of class eight trucks crashed. Any attempt to get anything accomplished to clear a blockage in the road ONLY happened when the VA state police would go from cab to cab and tell each trucker to hold, move forward, yield to the plows etc....Otherwise some of these fools seemed to think that the best way forward was full speed ahead, until they were crashed in the medians or over the sides, and twisted up in big tangles on climbs. I really believe that, absent the truck traffic, 90% of the problems would never of happened.
Even if the majority of truckers on the road are competent professionals, there is a significant minority that haven't got a clue, and little experience with operating in a blizzard. On a major trucking corridor with tens of thousands of rigs a day heading in and out of the NYC and New England markets, a significant blizzard, with hurricane winds, is always going to be ugly.

I think truckers are held to such tight schedules that they are almost forced to keep plowing ahead or face penalties from their employers. Safety should always take priority but some don't see it that way. I've driven in some pretty tough weather where visibility is very poor and the trucks keep rolling along. They must have radar in their cabs.

skipro3 wrote:
It would seem to me, that the authorities, knowing that the pattern is repeated over and over with truckers on major routes during winter storms, would shut them down to the truckers. That's what we do here in California. The Highway Patrol and Department of Transportation holds all trucks from the California/Nevada state line to the East and the 2,000' elevation to the West until the weather improves.
No, the truckers don't like it, but they expect it and can plan for it because it's the policy.

It would be nice if that could be done here in PA but the truckers would be shut down half of the winter. The supply line to the northeast crosses the state and we wouldn't dare disrupt that. Those people could run out of toilet paper.