Winter weather hits Madison

By Aldo Amato / Staff Reporter

Days after being hit with widespread flooding, the Madison area was hit with a brief winter storm on Jan. 17.

Both Madison proper and the surrounding Madison County area experienced high volumes of rain for three straight days that resulted in flooding on some roadways, creeks and rivers. On Thursday, the area was once again hit nasty weather only this time, in the form of snow, slush and ice.

Capt. John Stringer with the Madison Police Department said that local police, fire and other first responders dealt with car accidents, stalled vehicles and other weather related traffic incidents nearly all afternoon.

“We worked numerous collisions in the span of about three hours,” he said. “A majority of our patrols at a point were working out on the collisions.”

Parts of 1-565 and other roadways in Madison had to be closed down for a period of time due to high amounts of slush and ice that made driving treacherous.

“We closed down Eastview Drive for a while because it had numerous hazards,” Stringer said. “It was widespread and it was all across the city. We had many (wrecks) on 1-565 that were direct results of the weather.”

Some areas in Madison saw up to an inch of snow on Thursday. Most of the snowfall across the county stopped by the evening hours but already iced over roads became twice as treacherous as temperatures dipped into the 20’s. There reports of cars stranded northbound on I-65 near Cullman for nearly eight hours.

Stringer said that despite the rough road conditions, the City of Madison had a plan ready in place and it was smoothly executed.

“Of course anytime in a severe weather event there are typically chaotic in the early stages,” he said. “But we already had a game plan and met with all the effective departments. We had all the resources we needed and deployed them where they were needed.”

By Friday morning, most of the roads in Madison were passable however Madison City Schools aired on the safe side opening on a two-hour delay.