116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Cedar Rapids towing companies struggle to catch up after multiple snow emergencies
Jan. 19, 2024 5:39 pm
CEDAR RAPIDS — The temperature was close to zero, with a wind chill that made it feel much colder, when Ron Hochstetler got out of his tow truck Friday to start digging Claudine Niyogushina’s car out of the snow along the side of Interstate 380.
“It’s a nice day out,” Hochstetler said. “Well, compared to last night when I was working.”
Hochstetler Towing, the Cedar Rapids company Hochstetler operates with his grandson, was the third towing company Niyogushina called after she hit a patch of ice and swerved off the road Friday morning while on her way to work. The first two said they could put her on their waiting lists, but they probably wouldn’t be able to get to her car until next week.
Since last week’s snowstorms — which brought blizzard conditions that prompted warnings that travel was not advised throughout much of southern and Eastern Iowa — towing companies in Cedar Rapids and around the state have been overwhelmed with the number of people needing services.
Between Jan. 8 and Jan. 19 the Iowa State Patrol responded to almost 3,200 motorist assists calls — or calls for people who slid off the road or otherwise needed rescue from the storm — according to Sgt. Alex Dinkla, the public information officer for the Iowa State Patrol.
Dinkla said he would estimate there are currently thousands of cars left in ditches on highways across the state waiting to be towed.
Tow bans were active in most cities for a few days after the storms, meaning towing companies were already days behind by the time they were able to get on the roads.
“I just start at six in the morning and end about midnight every night, or later,” Hochstetler said. “I’m not even counting (calls). I take as many as I can. I get the people done. I’m pretty much staying on the west side of Cedar Rapids right now — that’s where my shop is — because there’s so much towing going on. If I stay in one area I can do almost twice as many calls.”
Hochstetler Towing has two tow trucks, but he knows a lot of the other towing companies in town, so he’ll often refer people to other companies he trusts when he’s not able to take a call, Hochstetler said.
But everyone else is just as busy. Kevin Ruth, who owns Fast Tow in Cedar Rapids, has stopped taking on new jobs until he’s able to finish the ones already on his list.
“When we’re not overwhelmed, we like to give a 60-minute ETA at most. Right now, it’s at least a few hours or the next day, if we’re lucky,” he said.
Kevin’s wife, Stefanie Ruth, does the bookkeeping and office work for the business, while Kevin handles the towing with some part-time help from his brother. Stefanie said the calls have been non-stop since the roads opened up last week. Fast Tow is able to complete about 10 to 20 towing jobs each day, but they’ve been getting more than 100 calls daily.
“I answer one and I miss three, because we don’t have the fancy phone system where you can put 10 people on hold. We run our business with cellphones. It’s hard to keep up with the phone calls,” Stefanie said.
Towing large vehicles during snow emergencies
Larger businesses, like Tegeler Wrecker and Crane, have also been busy, responding not only to personal vehicles stuck across the state, but also to larger emergencies. Tegeler has shops around Eastern Iowa, and has the equipment and training to tow small, personal vehicles, as well as larger vehicles like semi-trucks.
Jake Schroeder, the operations manager at Tegeler, said for the first few days after the tow bans lifted, the company was almost exclusively responding to emergency situations like semis blocking major roadways or plows that had gotten stuck.
“Our list is so long right now of people wanting and needing services. We’re doing everything we can to keep up … Emergency stuff is definitely slowing down, and now we’re in cleanup mode,” Schroeder said. “We are well into some two-, three-, four-, five- or six-hour ETAs, but we’re prioritizing jobs based on if they’re blocking shoulders and if we’re able to work.”
Semi-trucks that go off the road but aren’t in the way of traffic usually won’t be removed until nighttime, that way lanes don’t have to be closed during peak traffic hours. That wait can mean spoiled cargo for trucking companies, and long hours for towing staff.
“So, not only is the towing staff working all day, now we’ve got to go out at night and take these trucks out,” Schroeder said. “Right now we're dealing with a load of beef that was involved in an accident. He went in the ditch and then another motorist come by, lost control, and hit the back, breaking open the back of the trailer. That particular cargo will probably not be put on the market due to safety concerns.”
How to avoid getting stuck in the snow
The majority of tow jobs the Eastern Iowa companies have been responding to are for vehicles that got stuck in the snow, either because the driver lost control and slid off the road, or because the car was parked in a side street or alley that hasn’t been plowed.
It’s also not uncommon for mechanical problems to be exacerbated by the cold weather.
Hochstetler said he’s responded to a lot of calls for dead batteries and other mechanical failures, because when “your car’s on a halfway margin where everything works in fairly decent weather, then you get this cold spell, that’s when your battery says, ‘I don’t want to work.’”
Kevin Ruth agreed, and said the best way to avoid getting stuck out in the cold is to “have good tires, and a good battery, and slow down when the roads are bad. That would save so many people.”
If you do get stuck, towing experts recommend calling one company and getting on a waiting list, then waiting patiently for availability.
“The whole entire towing community across Iowa is urging everyone to just be patient with us. We're going to do everything we can and get you taken care of as quickly as we can. We appreciate all of our good customers. We appreciate the opportunity to work for you. Just hold tight with us,” Schroeder said.
Cedar Rapids parking during a snow emergency
In Cedar Rapids, cars on roads that are not marked as emergency snow routes must be parked on the even side of the street on even days and on the odd side of the street on odd days during a snow emergency, so that plows can clear a path in the roads.
The city’s most recent snow emergency expired at 6 p.m. Friday.
Parking in the same spot on a city street for more than 48 consecutive hours is prohibited under Cedar Rapids city code, and the Cedar Rapids Police Department is working to ticket and tow any vehicles that haven’t moved. As of Thursday, the department had received 251 reports of cars that hadn’t been moved since a snow emergency was first declared on Jan. 8, according to a Facebook post from the department.
“This restricts the ability of street crews to clear the streets properly and leads to the reduction in the size of lanes of travel on streets and roadways. This reduction can impede the response of emergency vehicles, and reduces access for sanitation vehicles and delivery trucks in neighborhoods,” the post reads.
Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com
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