Slushy, rainy and snowy weather made for poor driving conditions, downed power lines Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in northwest North Dakota, and resulted in a fatality crash 20 miles south of Watford City. Hundreds went without power overnight in northwest North Dakota.
Three members of a family moving from Texas to Montana were killed in a semi accident near the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, reported McKenzie County Sheriff Paul Larson. The father and two children were killed after a semi struck the U-haul van the family was driving in.
Poor road conditions landed many other motorists in the ditch.
“There were dozens of vehicles in the ditch because of slushy build-up on the highway,” Larson said. Some 250 people remained without power within the communities of Hanks, Zahl and Appam this morning. “We have 16 poles broken off that we're aware of,” said Ted Smith, electric operations supervisor for Montana-Dakota Utilities. “The ice builds up on the lines, and with the wind, it broke the poles.”
“We expect to be done working on them later this afternoon,” he added. “We hope to have everything up by evening.”
Smith said Alexander and Arnegard also lost power Tuesday afternoon, but had power returned to them before dark.
Wet, heavy, snow downed a number of power lines in rural Alamo, Grenora and Zahl, leaving residents without power overnight.
“We have about 150 people without power in the rural areas surrounding those communities,” said Chris Brostuen, assistant general manager of Mountrail-Williams Electric Cooperative. “We have 35 to 40 poles down. The combination of snow and ice on the line gets it heavy.”
Compounded by wind gusts, the power lines were vulnerable, Brostuen said.
“Crews are up in the area working on it. Our goal is to get the power back up by this evening, but right now it looks difficult,” he said this morning.
Brief power outages within the city of Williston also were blamed on weather. “It was due to transmission outages outside of Williston,” Smith said. He said the power was switched from other sources, and residents here saw power return.
“We've got six broken poles affecting mostly the Indian Hill and Squaw Gap area,” said Gary Thorson of the McKenzie County Electric Cooperative. “At one point, we had 100 people without power. We're gaining a lot of ground. It's scattered mostly throughout western McKenzie County.” He said they hope to restore power by this evening.
Power was out in Trenton until shortly after 5 a.m. today, said Williams County Emergency Disaster Coordinator Ed Lodwig.
The Williams County Sheriff's Office responded to multiple calls of motorists who had slid into the ditch. Many were told to take their keys and retrieve the vehicles later when it was safer.
Divide County Sheriff Lauren Throntveit reported that 3 to 4 inches of “really heavy snow” had been received in the area, causing a rollover 1 1/12 miles south of Crosby on ND 42. Michael Moe, 52, of rural Crosby totaled his 2004 Ford Ranger in the accident. He was cited for care required for allegedly driving too fast for conditions.
According to Eric Wise, meteorologist intern for the Williston Office of the National Weather Service, Williston netted about .13 inch of precipitation through rain Monday, 2.2 inches of rain and snow Tuesday, and as of early this morning, .14 inch precipitation.
The National Weather Service reported that winds peaked at gusts of 51 mph from the north, had a sustained wind of 40 miles per hour and an average wind of 32 mph.
More rain and possibly snow are expected today.
“We could receive possibly another half an inch through the remainder of today,” he said at 8 a.m. today.
Wind will continue to gust between 25 and 35 mph through the remainder of today. “After midnight, that should die down to 10 to 20 mph,” Wise said.
Today's high was expected at 40 degrees. “We should be back in the upper 60s for Friday and the weekend,” Wise said.
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