Blizzard conditions forced the closure of long stretches of Interstates 80 and 35 Sunday night, while the Iowa State Patrol responded to more than 60 crashes just on Sunday. Nine of the crashes involved injuries, and one person died in a crash in Davis County.
Mike Kennon, Cass County’s emergency management coordinator, says first responders were very busy when I-80 was still open.
“We had a pile-up of vehicles initially north of Marne. That got kind of cleaned up, and I say cleaned up, you know, at least passable,” Kennon says. “And then on the 60, closer to the Highway 71 intersection, we had another pile-up that happened right before they shut down the interstate.”
Kennon says an untold number of cars and trucks are strewn in the ditches and medians. Stranded motorists needed a place to stay and in some cases, receive medical treatment. He says the Nishna Valley YMCA in Atlantic was the designated shelter.
“Overnight, we had close to 50 people that spend the night at the YMCA,” he says.
Officials in Cass County coordinated rescue services from a number of surrounding towns and counties, taking injured people to the YMCA initially.
“They triaged people here. They sent people to the ER at the hospital,” Kennon says, “and then once they were done with them at the ER, they were transported here.”
Kennon is working to coordinate ways to get those motorists back to their vehicles once the roads re-open.
(By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic)