State officials hold exercise to prevent another freeway snow fiasco

Talk about it

Sixty state transportation and emergency officials staged a winter storm exercise Thursday, hoping to avoid large-scale back-ups on highways, like one that happened seven months ago near Madison.

On February 6th, up to 2000 motorists were stuck on a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 39-90 south of Madison, due to heavy snow and icy roads. Many critics – including Governor Doyle – demanded to know why the emergency response was slow and disorganized, leaving many people stuck overnight in their cars.

The table-top exercise at Madison’s State Emergency Operations Center (EOC) was to address response problems during the back-up. Lori Getter of Wisconsin Emergency Management explains what was learned.

“We had the EOC activated but we didn’t have enough agencies or enough people to monitor those storms correctly,” she says. “And again, communicating, making sure everyone knows what’s going on, tidbit going on, that that’s being relayed to the EOC and to the Department of Transportation, and the State Patrol that we’re all hearing the same thing, we’re all on the same page which is very important.”

The state Department of Transportation (DOT) is also working on a new communications system that’ll provide ongoing weather and travel conditions to motorists, that is expected to launch by year’s end.

The department says it’ll install a series of traffic cameras along I-90 in Rock County in November, where a huge stretch of vehicles were stranded during last winter’s backup.

“Cameras have been a topic of discussion with our local emergency planning committee for probably 3 to 4 years,” says Shirley Connors, Rock County’s emergency management coordinator. “I’m just very happy to hear that they’re finally going to have them installed and particularly with the severe weather coming up, it would be nice – definitely – to have it.”

Finally, an internal review of the DOT’s emergency response procedures is expected to be conducted, but it’s unlikely to be made public.

Tags: wisconsin news, winter storm drill