It was quite treacherous for driving on many streets with ice covered roads on Friday.
Park Hill Drive, east of Pioneer Park, had some crashes and minor accidents.
Nobody was hurt, but it was kind of tough until the city crews put down the sand.
“Zero control over my vehicle,” said Cassie Crafton, who lives on Parkhill. “I just started to slide, so I was going back and forth, almost spun around.”
Crafton was one of many who narrowly avoided sliding into a car while taking her kids to school.
Many others weren't so lucky.
“I was able to get to the end of the block here and then right as I was coming out, three more cars got into accidents behind me,” Crafton said. “So everybody was OK but we had within an hour, a total of 7 cars.”
That meant tow truck drivers were extremely busy.
“Everything's going slow enough that you know when they wreck, it's nothing big,” said Al Abella, driver for Anderson Towing. “And just hurt feelings and hurt fenders and stuff.
Abela had three more waiting for him after this job, and he had already seen the dangerous roads.
“Especially when it was nice and clear yesterday but still enough to be frozen and it left a little wet layer that froze,” Abella said. “And then we got fresh snow on top of it.
Some drivers from the department had been out since 5:30 in the morning trying to sand city streets
“Just a lot of hills,” said Nolan Lagaly, city Billlings street division operator. “A lot of the intersections are starting to freeze up really bad right now.
Lagaly was ready to go back for a third load of sand late in the morning, and he says about 15 drivers have been focused on putting down the sand and salt mix.
“Anywhere there's a stop sign, stoplight, hill, curve, pretty much anywhere where anybody needs to try to slow down or stop, we're trying to put as much down as we can,” Lagaly said.
The ills like this one with reports of drivers spinning out.
“They just couldn't get any traction and so they were starting to come backwards down Grand,” said Crafton.
“If you don't have to go anywhere, I would sit at home and enjoy your nice comfortable furnace,” Abella said.
