Icy conditions cause more than 180 crashes in Indy
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said there were more than 180 traffic incidents Monday as commuters dealt with icy conditions.
On Monday, IMPD said it recorded 30 injury accidents, 119 property-damage crashes, 14 property damage hit-and-run accidents, three personal injury hit-and-run accidents and 21 other traffic incidents.
Indianapolis Department of Public Works, which had not planned to hit the streets until 11 p.m. in anticipation of icy conditions, about 6 p.m. decided to send four trucks out to battle the ice coating bridges and overpasses.
Indiana Department of Transportation’s east central district, which serves Indianapolis, had trucks out Monday starting around noon. About 7:30 p.m., INDOT had about 30 trucks out in Indianapolis and 40 others across the east central district, which covers Indianapolis and points north and east of the city.
Many of the crashes were reported on overpasses, bridges and interstate ramps. In Avon, an eight-vehicle crash closed the Ronald Reagan Parkway bridge over multiple railroad tracks.
Around 6:35 p.m. Indianapolis and Pike fire departments responded to a report of two cars in a retention pond at the intersection of 86th Street and Township Line Road. The cars had not collided but both hit the same patch of black ice turning from Township Line Road onto 86th Street, according to Battalion Chief Rita Reith with IFD.
A 50-year-old woman was the sole occupant in one car and managed to roll down her passenger side window, climb out of the car and swim to shore. In the second car, a 37-year-old woman and her three children, ages 4, 11 and 17, were able to unbuckle themselves once the car hit the water, then climb out and get on top of the car. A bystander jumped into the water and took the 4-year-old to dry land but left the scene, Reith said. The IFD Dive Team deployed a zodiac and brought the other three people to safety. All five patients were expected to be fine.
When asked, Reith said she did not know whether the Indianapolis Department of Public Works had treated the area prior to the cars sliding into the retention pond.
“I think, you know, people knew it was … We had a lot of precipitation today and the weather, the temperatures were chilly and they dropped pretty suddenly. So I just think it caught people unprepared, but I don’t know that DPW has had a chance to get out and do anything to the roads yet. So again just really superfortunate that nobody got seriously injured,” Reith said.