RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The timing and ferocity of a winter storm caught much of North Carolina by surprise Tuesday, closing schools and businesses and creating icy roads that led to hundreds of collisions.
It came on the heels of an ice storm last week and ahead of one that a meteorologist described as “the bigger-impact event.”
Forecasters learned late Monday night that the Tuesday storm would be bigger than expected, National Weather Service meteorologist Kathleen Carroll said. “We tried to get the word out, but everybody’s asleep, so it hits people without a whole lot of heads-up,” she said Tuesday.
Snowfall amounts ranged from 1-2 inches in the Raleigh and Greensboro areas and up to 6 inches in the foothills and mountains. The next storm could bring another 3 inches to 6 inches across most of the state.
Authorities attributed two deaths, both in car accidents, to snow-covered roads and to drivers exceeding safe speeds for conditions.
Here’s how some people handled North Carolina’s second onslaught of winter weather:
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ROAD HAZARDS
Between 6 a.m. and mid-afternoon Tuesday, state Highway Patrol troopers had responded to 2,060 calls for service, Gov. Pat McCrory said. Of those, 1,727 were collisions. Troopers typically respond to about 1,000 calls in a 24-hour period.
Authorities said two people died in wrecks on snow-covered roads, one in Wake County and one in Onslow County.
Conditions won’t improve Tuesday night or early Wednesday. Then the forecast calls for more wintry weather Wednesday night and Thursday.
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EVEN TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT SURPRISED
Forecasts had said the snow would begin falling Tuesday afternoon, so the state Transportation Department loaded its trucks with brine Monday, with the plan of spraying the roads after the Tuesday morning rush hour, DOT spokesman Steve Abbott said. Instead, the snow began falling just as commuters and school buses were getting on the untreated roads, which quickly became slick.
DOT redeployed trucks loaded with rock salt and sand to spread on the snowy roads, he said. As of noon, Abbott said DOT and its contractors had more than 1,000 heavy trucks and graders on the roads statewide, with more than 50 in Wake County alone.
Charlotte, which had been predicted to receive snow earlier than the Triangle and Triad, was in better shape because the roads had been brined early Tuesday.
Abbott said temperatures are predicted to remain in the 20s, which is warm enough for the salt to melt the snow.
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DEJA VU
Kathy Davies Muzzey of Wilmington was once again talking her husband out of traveling to Chapel Hill for a basketball game between the Tar Heels and a longtime rival. Last year, she hid the car keys from her husband, John, so he wouldn’t drive to Chapel Hill for the Tar Heels’ game against Duke in February. That game was postponed.
UNC is scheduled to play N.C. State on Tuesday night, and Muzzey told his wife that he had had an extra set of car keys made so she couldn’t stop him. “If there’s a threat from now, he told me he’s going the night before, especially if it’s Duke or Kentucky,” she said. But, he ended up not going - he emailed the tickets to someone who lives in Cary.
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SLEDDING OR SLEEPING?
Nicole Kincaid of Wake Forest has a 15-year-old who’s a freshman in high school and a 5th-grader who’s 10 years old. Guess which one chose to go back to bed once school was canceled?
The teenager was getting ready to leave the house Tuesday morning when he got a Twitter notification of the two-hour school delay.
He was waiting at the house with friends when they learned school was canceled. Being a teenager, he went back to bed, Kincaid said.
“My 10-year-old is just waking up and going outside,” Kincaid said Tuesday morning. “We have good sledding hills in our neighborhood. And I may join him for some of that sledding.”
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ONE MOM ENJOYED THE SURPRISE
Cynthia Deis, owner of Raleigh bead and craft store Ornamentea and mother of two daughters, described the surprise snow as magical.
“When I was a kid, we’d wake and say, ’What, there’s snow?’” she said. “We went to bed last night thinking we might have a trace at noon. Then we look out the window and see snow.”
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SNOWBALL FIGHT
At Duke University, psychology professor Amir Rezvani brought his class outside for an impromptu snowball fight near the traffic circle that surrounds the statue of Washington Duke. More than two dozen students from his class on addiction and alcoholism giggled and bent over to grab handfuls of snow and pelt one another.
“I asked them to come out for 10 minutes,” he said before bending over and balling up some snow.
Mary Gabrielle Thomas, a freshman from Boston, said that considering where she’s from, the “snow’s not very impressive.” But she acknowledged that the snowball fight was wonderful.
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Associated Press reporters Michael Biesecker and Jonathan Drew in Durham, North Carolina, contributed to this story.
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Martha Waggoner can be reached at https://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc
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