Winter weather wreaks weekend woes
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Heavy snowfall over Thanksgiving weekend made for hazardous travel conditions around Western Montana, and Lake County was no different.
The Montana Highway Patrol responded to 34 crashes over the weekend in the Polson detachment, which encompasses U.S. Highway 93 from mile marker 15 near Arlee north to mile marker 93, stretching over to Dixon, Perma, Hot Springs and Dayton. According to MHP dispatch, none of those accidents resulted in serious injuries.
But even the minor accidents still kept emergency responders busy. On Sunday alone, the Lake County Sheriff’s dispatch center received 20 calls for vehicle slide-ins, and law enforcement officers were tapped to escort snowplows throughout the day.
In the Missoula MHP area of Lake County, at least one serious accident occured when two Charlo women headed south in a small Chevy Colorado hit black ice on the Jocko River Bridge just north of Arlee on Hwy. 93, MHP Trooper Shad Andersen said. The vehicle fishtailed into the other lane and was T-boned by a full-size Chevy Silverado on the driver’s side. Traffic was stopped for about an hour as emergency crews extricated the two women in the Chevy Colorado.
The weather was too bad for Life Flight, but the two women from Charlo and a female passenger in the Silverado were taken to the hospital in Missoula, Andersen said. As of Monday evening, all three were still hospitalized but expected to recover.
“The driver of the small pickup sustained pretty serious injuries,” Andersen said.
The Silverado’s occupants were a husband and wife from Libby, he noted. Everyone involved in the crash was wearing seatbelts.
Andersen said a big “thank-you” goes to state and county road crews “for keeping the majority of our roads in the (Mission) Valley clear.”
