By evening rush hour Thursday, just venturing out onto the street was a feat of derring-do.
Vehicles, from tiny compact cars to big public buses, slid and skidded. Wheels spun. Anti-lock brake systems kicked. Brake lights glowed.
“I’ve seen my life flash before my eyes so many times I’m bored with it,” joked Robbie Marsh at a convenience store off jampacked West Sixth Avenue in Lakewood. “If I make it home in one piece, then I’m done. Just call me when it’s over.”
The slushy daytime snow intensified Thursday night, and roads that had been wet during the day turned icy.
“It’s rush hour in a blizzard,” said Ann Williams, spokeswoman for Denver Public Works, adding that the department pretreated major and secondary streets with magnesium chloride.
As of Thursday evening, most of the state’s major highways were open, though slippery driving conditions were reported throughout the metro area.
“People who live in the foothills are having a hard time, but for the most part, they’re able to get going again,” said Stacey Stegman, a Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman. CDOT was treating roads with the liquid de-icer APEX, which works better in cold temperatures, she said.
After midnight on Friday morning the Colorado Department of Transportation operations center reported a huge backlog of vehicles on eastbound Interstate 70 around Idaho Springs because of numerous accidents and road conditions.
Both sides of Interstate 25 from Wellington to Wyoming remain closed because of a combination of accidents and icy roads. CDOT officials don’t expect that stretch of highway to reopen by the morning rush hour.
The Boulder Turnpike remains open, but conditions are pretty bad and while CDOT officials don’t anticipate it shutting down – like it did in last week’s blizzard – it remains a possibility.
Chain laws are in effect for all commercial vehicles on highways in the Denver metro area, including I-25 south of Lincoln to Monument. No closures there are anticipated, but driving conditions are worsening.
In addition to Loveland Pass, several state highways around Boulder are closed including Colorado highways 93, 128 and 119 between Boulder and Nederland.
Those highways are not expected to be re-open by the morning work commute.
Colorado State Patrol spokesman Gilbert Mares said as of 12:15 a.m. that there have been no reports of traffic deaths or serious injuries related to the adverse weather conditions.
However, Interstate 70 westbound at Morrison, which shut down just after dark, remains closed because of numerous accidents.
Stegman said the western stretches of Interstate 70 were posing the most problems for motorists, particularly in the Floyd Hill area.
A Colorado State Patrol spokesman said the agency had received several calls from stranded motorists on I-70 west of Denver.
“We’re not having as many calls as during the first storm and aren’t seeing as much traffic,” Trooper Gilbert Mares said.
In the Denver area late Thursday afternoon, CDOT took the unusual step of requiring chains on all commercial vehicles.
The Denver Police Department began warning motorists to stay away from the area around South Sheridan Boulevard and West Hampden Avenue, where motorists were finding nearly impossible travel.
Virginia Quiñones, a police spokeswoman, said the big hill was “a skating rink.”
“We’re suggesting that anyone who does not have to be out there stay in,” Quiñones said.
About 8 p.m., roughly 30 Regional Transportation District buses were stuck across the metro area. The worst problems were in the Sheridan area, spokesman Scott Reed said.
For drivers, conditions quickly became aggravating.
Slushy roads and rear-wheel drive vehicles were a constant source of frustration for Stan McMinn of Broomfield.
“This is Colorado, but you would think it’s Florida the way people drive,” he said, getting into his Ford Bronco at a Lakewood convenience store. “This is just nuts. If people don’t have the tires for snow, they should just stay off the road in this kind of weather.”
Staff writers Manny Gonzales, Allison Sherry and Kim McGuire contributed to this report.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
