Valley Pulse

My trip to a 9 a.m. meeting in Verona Thursday became more of an adventure.

As I turned from U.S. 250 down Lew DeWitt Boulevard for a quick stop at Starbucks, it was apparent the major Waynesboro thoroughfare was more like the skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza than a city traffic artery.

Many cars, including my own, were slipsliding everywhere and some completely stopped. The truck in front of me was sliding in every direction. As the truck turned left off Lew DeWitt I noticed it was a city of Waynesboro truck.

The presence of a city truck on roads not salted or treated roused my curiosity about the city’s public works department. That question was answered when reporter Tony Gonzalez spoke to police and public works departments in Staunton and Waynesboro and Virginia State Police as well. He learned: Staunton and Waynesboro public works crews were caught off guard by a renegade snowfall as traffic volume grew and children waited for school buses at about 7 a.m.

Police and rescue crews across the county worked more than 40 accidents and westbound Interstate 64 at Afton Mountain was temporarily shut down due to ice on the road.

I felt fortunate to not only make it safely to Starbucks but to my 9 o’clock meeting in Verona. More than once in the past several weeks we have had warnings of wintry mixes. But Thursday morning’s storm not only caught me by surprise, but city public works employees as well.