Billrussell (and others), I’d generally agree that poor driving skills were a factor, but not in this case. There are times that even the best driving skills can’t keep you out of a jam, such as those described by Mike as related to him by his neighbor. Generally they fall into natural conditions, such as rock falls, earthquakes, tsunamis, and… unusual extreme weather-caused road conditions such as this. A few crashes or cars that skidded off the road could be attributed to poor drivers, but there were countless accidents, rollovers, and massive multicar pile ups. In this case I cannot agree to blame it on driver error. If I were to place any blame at all, and I’m reluctant to, I’d be inclined to place blame on the highway departments for lack of readiness. They assumed the national Weather Service’s predictions were correct, and nobody apparently realized that all the sand and salt had washed off the pavement from the recent rains.
There are disasters caused solely by nature. I’m inclined to accept this as one. I’m just glad I went home instead of going ahead with my plans, which would have had me on I-93.