Dozens of accidents reported around Eastern Iowa

Emergency response authorities reported a great number of in-town motor vehicle accidents this morning, due to slick roads and the traffic aggravating them.

Local and county authorities reported a total of 86 crashes and counting along the roadways and interstates since this morning, due to the slippery driving conditions from scattered snow showers.

Jones County Sheriff Greg Graver said 15 cars ended up in ditches since this morning, and about six of them were rollovers.

In Dubuque, authorities responded to 20 crashes since 11:15 a.m. from city-to-county limits.

The Linn County Sheriff's Office reported nine crashes since 5:30 a.m., two of which were three-vehicle accidents.

There was also a three-vehicle accident along Interstate 380 near Swisher at lunchtime, which backed up traffic for about two miles. But Johnson County Deputies and Iowa State Patrol opened up the lane within 30 minutes. No one was injured.

Cedar Rapids police Sgt. Cristy Hamblin said officers handled three accidents in town during the morning commute.

Iowa City police Sgt. Denise Brotherton said the first accident report came in around 7:25 a.m. Tuesday, with 23 occurring afterward in Iowa City.

Coralville Police Chief Barry Bedford said his officers went from one accident to another; since 9:30 a.m., they responded to 12 property damage accidents in town and two on Interstate 80, he said.

“We've been busy,” Bedford said of the morning's incidents.

North Liberty police said they've only seen one accident in town, which could be due to morning commuters leaving town to head to work elsewhere in the county.

Some drivers said the conditions seemed to become dangerous just as people began to leave their homes and head to work.

“They looked better than they actually were,” Brotherton said of the road conditions, which she noticed driving from North Liberty. “I think people just weren't really prepared for it.”

According to John Sobaski, assistant superintendent for streets and traffic engineering with the Iowa City Streets Department, there was just enough traffic moving to cause a glazing effect to occur on the streets as drivers applied their brakes at stop-and-go intersections.

According to the Iowa Department of Transportation, glazing, or “wheel-track glazing,” occurs when warm tires trap snow flurries in the road, and as more vehicles travel over the same tracks, a glaze of ice forms. IDOT crews say they have difficulty treating this because ice is constantly forming on busy roads this time of year.

Sobaski said all 12 of the city's plow and sander trucks started working at 7 a.m. to minimize the slippery roads. Prior to then there were minimal road safety problems, so with traffic, the roads became trickier to navigate, he noted.

All of the crashes in Iowa City were reported as property damage only, Brotherton said, except for one motorist who suffered from undetermined injuries, most likely minor.

Luckily, no other serious injuries were reported from the other crashes, although a couple motorists in Jones County were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment as a precautionary measure, Graver said.

From weather updates issued earlier this week from the Iowa Department of Transportation, drivers are urged to keep an eye out for wheel-track glazing in heavy-traffic areas and for black ice, usually found in rural areas and near bodies of water, on the road.

Motorists can call 511 in Iowa for latest road condition reports, or check conditions online at www.511ia.org.

The snow isn't expected to accumulate, however; scattered snow and flurries are expected to clear later today.