A photo of a snow-covered county taken from a Brown County Highway Department truck at 8 a.m. on Jan. 15. Icy roads were not expected as a part of the weekend forecast and brought highway department crews out for a full day of work, placing sand and salt on the roads.
Submitted photo | Michael Magner
Residents woke up to a surprise the morning of Saturday, Jan. 15 with snow covering the ground and ice covering the roads.
The forecast had predicted snow early on last week courtesy of a snow storm moving through the Midwest, but then the pattern of the storm shifted and looked as if it would avoid most of Indiana or bring a few flurries.
By Saturday morning, Nashville had less than a half inch of snow on the ground while the northern part of the county received a little more than a half inch.
The small amount of snow that did fall overnight Friday, Jan. 14 into the early hours of Jan. 15 was enough to cause roads to ice over.
Posts on social media began appearing with residents warning others to stay home and posting photos of vehicles that had slid off on the icy roads throughout the county.
There were 20 reports of slide-offs between 6:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 15. Two crashes involving injuries and six more with property-damage were also reported during that timeframe, according to the dispatch log from the Brown County Sheriff’s Department.
But it was unclear by deadline if any of those accidents were due to the slick road conditions.
Brown County Highway Superintendent Michael Magner said on Jan. 17 that the department was not expecting the snowy weather or roads to be covered in ice. He said he was up at 3:30 a.m. Jan. 15 and noted no snow on the ground with only flurries in the forecast.
He called in a crew around 7 a.m. when roads began to ice. He said the highway department crews spread sand and salt all day until 5 p.m.
The county has contract drivers on standby to use the highway department’s trucks and equipment to clear roads in the event of winter weather. Magner said on Monday that those drivers were not needed to respond to the roads on Jan. 15.
