Hampton Roads officials urge drivers to stay home

Almost 18 hours after the snow stopped accummulating in Hampton Roads, roads remain treacherous all over the region. And officials are continuing to urge drivers to stay home.

"Until it gets above freezing, we're going to continue to have problems," Steve Herbert, deputy city manager in Virginia Beach, said this morning. "You can move through most of the major roads ... but not safely."

VDOT crews plan to work through the night once again, but road conditions will remain precarious for Tuesday morning’s commute.

Slush and melting snow will freeze overnight and could create black ice, said spokeswoman Lauren Hansen. She said VDOT is again urging drivers to stay put if they can, or at least delay travel plans. She urged extreme caution otherwise – just because a road looks fine doesn’t mean it is.

Still, Hansen said, crews were able to clear about 85 percent of interstates by Monday evening.

Multiple cities have already announced delays, including Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Suffolk and Portsmouth.

Ice is making the work difficult for crews, Herbert said. Virginia Beach employees have been operating 25 city-owned plows and graders to clear roads since the storm began. The city has also contracted the services of five other vehicles, he said.

Interstate 264 in Virginia Beach and Interstate 664 on the Peninsula remained plagued by snow and ice, as did Routes 15 and 175 on the Eastern Shore.

In Chesapeake, public works crews have been clearing bridges, overpasses and main roads, like Battlefield Boulevard and Greenbrier Parkway, city spokesman Heath Covey said this morning. He described those primary routes as "cautiously passable" but urged drivers not to venture out because the small connector roads are "still in bad shape."

"I doubt they'll get up in the neighborhoods all the way," Covey said of the city plow trucks. "There's just no way to get up in there with the amount of equipment that we have and the amount of snowfall."

Crews in Suffolk are now moving to clear secondary roads, such as Bennetts Pasture and Shoulders Hill roads, city spokeswoman Debbie George said this morning.

Police in Suffolk have responded to 134 wrecks since midnight Saturday. Most involved vehicles running off the roadway into ditches and medians. There were few injuries, George said.

Robert Bowen, deputy executive director at Norfolk International Airport, said travelers should call their airline today because many flights to the Northeast are canceled. Aircraft can land and depart from Norfolk, he said.

The worst snowstorm to blanket Hampton Roads in two decades dropped 14.2 inches of snow at Norfolk International Airport, according to the National Weather Service. That's the third highest accummulation for a single storm on record.

"The snow's not going anywhere," Julie Wilcox, a meteorologist with WVEC-TV, said this morning. "It'll blow around, but it's certainly not going to melt."

Temperatures are expected to be in the lower to mid-30s today, but a brisk wind will make it feel much colder, Wilcox said. Some snow flurries are possible, she said.

On Sunday, the snow caused hundreds to abandon their cars along roads, shut down the region's major shopping centers, forced most churches to cancel services and made the Virginia Department of Transportation close the Downtown Tunnel for much of the day.

Driving conditions were worse this morning. Cars and trucks left a layer of slush on the roads that, as feared, turned into ice overnight.

"Please stay off the roads," VDOT spokeswoman Nora Chivers said. "The fewer people on the road in the morning, the better."

Virginia National Guard soldiers helped several stranded motorists overnight, mainly on the Eastern Shore. They took some to a hotel. They found three people who had been stuck in a car near Onancock for four hours and took them to a shelter.

City snowplows do not clear residential streets, and most remain blanketed with a foot of snow and may be clogged for days.

Icy conditions are complicating efforts, said Mark Cox, a spokesman for the city of Chesapeake.

"Even the main roads we're clearing we're having trouble getting down to the pavement," he said this morning. "The clear roads have a coating of snow and ice on them."

VDOT's Chivers advised drivers to visit www.va511.com or call 511 for information on road conditions.

VDOT implored employers to shut down today, and many agreed. The Navy and Joint Forces Command announced late Sunday that only "mission-essential personnel" are to report to facilities in South Hampton Roads today.

City government offices, including courts and libraries, will be closed and no garbage will be collected today in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Suffolk.

Eastern Virginia Medical School is closed. Area school systems and universities were already shut because of the Christmas holidays.

The snow brought commerce to a standstill on Sunday in two of the region's hubs - downtown Norfolk and the Virginia Beach Town Center. But malls re-opened today.

At the height of the storm Sunday, the city of Virginia Beach declared a state of emergency and opened a shelter for residents at Salem High School. Snow was particularly heavy in the Kempsville area.

Virginia Beach officials asked residents to stay home. Spokeswoman Mary Hancock released a statement telling residents that many cars are stuck in the snow and "if you try to travel by car today, you will likely be trapped."

Many who braved the roads were indeed sorry. Virginia State Police said there were 421 accidents, 296 abandoned vehicles and 1,159 calls for service in Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore on Sunday. That does not include accidents or cars abandoned on city streets.

Mike Marsala, a fire captain for Norfolk Fire-Rescue, said abandoned cars hampered efforts to get rescue vehicles to some emergencies, including a handful of fires. Some city vehicles got stuck in the snow, he said.

Hampton Roads Transit buses stopped running about 1 p.m. Sunday. Hazardous conditions are keeping buses off the roads this morning.

About 17,000 customers in Hampton Roads and northeastern North Carolina lost power as a result of the snow storm, according to Dominion Virginia Power.

The power company had service restored to all but about 300 customers by early Monday afternoon. Slightly less than half of those residents were in Virginia Beach, with a few dozen each in Norfolk and Chesapeake, said Dan Genest, a Dominion spokesman.

He expected the company would have all power back on by this evening.

"We've moved extra crews down to the area to get everything fixed," he said.

Some residents reveled in the snow. Darryl Atkins, a Detroit native, built a snowman for his stepson in front of his Virginia Beach home.

"When it happens, you've got to enjoy it, because it's rare," he said of the snow.

Pilot writers Jennifer Jiggetts, Veronica Gonzalez, Hattie Brown, Carolyn Shapiro, Linda McNatt and Patrick Wilson contributed to this report.

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com