In the midst of heavy lake-effect snowfall in northern Pennsylvania and western New York over the weekend, Pennsylvania highway officials closed I-90 between Erie and the New York border without alerting New York, WBKW reports. Consequently, the New York State Thruway Authority abruptly closed the westbound lanes of its westernmost portion of I-90 and diverted all traffic to an exit at Ripley. Complications from that maneuver compounded when a tractor-trailer jackknifed at the exit, ultimately leading the Thruway to push its westbound closure further east, first to Dunkirk and then to Hamburg. With so much traffic diverted to State Routes 5 and 20 after the Dunkirk closure, local roads inundated with as much snow as the Thruway became heavily congested.
In a separate article, WBKW interviews a tow-truck driver who said the near-constant service calls from stranded vehicles depleted his company’s resources. “‘[By Sunday night] our guys, including myself, were so tired and exhausted that we basically called AAA and let everybody know that we were out of service at 10:00 p.m. Sunday night until 8:00 a.m. Monday morning,’” said Jim Ellman, the owner of Ellman’s Garage in Dunkirk.