
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 18, 1994                   TAG: 9401180175
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STORM PUTS STATE UNDER `ICY GLAZE'

Warming temperatures did more harm than good Monday as rain and sleet layered most of Virginia's frigid roads with a glaze of ice and caused numerous traffic accidents.

What's ahead for today? An end to precipitation and a return to cold temperatures.

"The state has an icy glaze to it," Ken Harris, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation's Emergency Operations Center, said just before dusk. "It's treacherous driving virtually around the state. We're recommending people drive only in cases of emergency."

Public schools were closed Monday for Lee-Jackson-King Day and many were calling off classes again today in Western, central and Northern Virginia.

Several inches of snow accumulated in the western mountains and rain fell in the Tidewater region. But just about everywhere in between had some mixture of rain and sleet and temperatures hovering around freezing, said Jim Belville, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Sterling.

Highland County had 14 inches of snow by 7:30 p.m., when the precipitation ended, according to the Sheriff's Department.

"It's getting serious. The roads are slick and covered with snow," said Brent Obaugh, a sheriff's dispatcher. "It's about as bad as it can get."

Obaugh said most residents were staying indoors.

"There is an awful lot of snow," said Mabel Bussard, manager of the Montvallee Motel in Monterey. "We've scraped the parking lot twice, but you'd never know it."

Bussard said the 14-room motel was half full. "We've got a few fellows with tractor-trailers stranded here. They were a little afraid of going on."

In Craig County, rain, sleet and snow had roads slick, according to sheriff's dispatcher Hope Wallace. "There must be 3 to 5 inches of snow on the ground. First, it was freezing rain, then sleet, then it snowed like you wouldn't believe," she said.

The state would have been better off if it had stayed frigid as it did over the weekend so the precipitation would have taken the form of snow, he said. "You'd much rather have snow, when there's a little bit of traction, than sleet and freezing rain when traction goes to nil."

Rain turned to ice when it hit the frigid pavement and ground, and highway crews were unable to keep up with the storm.

by CNB