Ice drives road havoc across much of Minnesota
Updated: 12:05 p.m.
Freezing drizzle left a treacherous coating of ice on sidewalks, streets and highways around the Twin Cities and across much of the rest of central and southern Minnesota on Wednesday morning, leading to dozens of crashes, school closures and canceled transit routes.
Whether walking or driving, it was tough to start — or stop — moving as ice continued to accumulate before sunrise.
“Conditions will be slowly improving throughout the day, because we will be warming to just at or above freezing,” said Tyler Hasenstein, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Twin Cities office. “And that combined with any sort of road-treating operations will make conditions fairly good, fairly quickly. But the tricky part is — when is that exactly going to happen area-wide? It’s going to take a while.”
The Minnesota Department of Transportation reported a flurry of crashes, spinouts and jackknifed semis across the region well ahead of the morning rush hour.
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The State Patrol reported more than 400 crashes and spinouts on Minnesota highways between 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, along with 22 jackknifed semis. There were no reported of serious injuries or fatalities. Those numbers do not include crashes that happened on city or county roads.
Metro Transit suspends service
Metro Transit suspended service on all of its bus service in the Twin Cities just before 5 a.m., though light rail and Northstar rail continued operating. At 8 a.m., Metro Transit said it was resuming service on its bus rapid transit routes — the Orange Line, Red Line, A Line, C Line and D Line. Soon after, the agency said it was “in the process of gradually releasing buses from the garages to restore all bus service.”
“I think the last time this occurred was in December 2019. So it's not a common occurrence by any means,” Metro Transit spokesperson Drew Kerr said of the bus service suspension earlier in the morning. “But it is on mornings like these where we put the safety of our employees and those who ride with us first — and it is safer this morning to stay where you are than to try to get anywhere.”
Metro Mobility and Transit Link service also were suspended Wednesday morning. The Minnesota Valley Transit Authority also suspended its bus routes for a few hours Wednesday before resuming service.
MnDOT spokesperson Anne Meyer said crews were out early to treat roads — but the fact that freezing drizzle was still falling complicated those efforts.
“When you have freezing rain, there's not much we can do in terms of plowing it like a snowfall. All we can do is put down material, which is likely a combination of rock salt and brine,” Meyer said earlier in the morning. “Those two together work best to activate quickly. But the challenge is, we've got more freezing rain still coming down at this point. It's going to take time for those materials to work.”
But Meyer said temperatures “are in our favor,” so conditions were expected to improve through the morning.
Schools delay start due to weather
Many school districts in the region delayed the start of classes Wednesday by two hours — including Minnetonka, St. Louis Park, Big Lake and Owatonna.
Bloomington, Prior Lake-Savage, Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan, Hastings, Lakeville and Red Wing are among districts that have moved to a distance learning day. Check with your local district for updates.
Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools did not cancel or delay classes but many of their students rely on Metro Transit buses to get to school, so the suspension of bus service was a big problem.
The districts both said that late arrivals due to transportation delays would be excused on Wednesday.
Links for more information
Here’s how to keep tabs on forecasts, travel conditions and flight updates over the next few days.
Forecast updates
MPR News: Live weather blog and real-time radar
National Weather Service: Snowfall reports
Travel conditions
These state transportation departments offer live updates on road conditions and crashes:
For bus and light rail riders in the Twin Cities, Metro Transit offers weather-related updates on its Metro Transit and Metro Transit Alerts Twitter pages, as well as on its website.
Flight updates
If you’re planning to fly from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport or another airport around the region — or if you are expecting visitors to arrive by plane — airports offer flight status updates online: