Crash snarls Highway 95 traffic
March 6, 2013
A heavy, wet snow and temperatures right at the freezing point made road conditions in Boundary County treacherous today, leading to a two-vehicle non-injury accident on Highway 95's Peterson Hill that tied up traffic for hours.

The initial call regarding the accident came at 7:19 p.m., and it set off a chain reaction of slide offs and semis getting stuck that exacerbated the problem and made for a long night for sheriff's deputies and volunteer firefighters from the Paradise Valley Fire Department.

On arriving on scene, the first order of business was to dispatch an Idaho Transportation Department plow and sand truck ... but the first one dispatched spun out and became stuck in building traffic. It took a second ITD truck to get the first one moving, all while traffic was shut down in both directions.

Once both ITD plows were moving, they went to work plowing and sanding, eventually enabling firefighters to begin easing traffic through one direction at a time.

Then a tow truck called to the scene to move a disabled vehicle involved in the accident slid off the road and became stuck, prompting a call for another tow truck. While waiting, a tow truck happened to stop in passing, so the call was belayed; but it turned out the one that stopped wasn't big enough to dislodge the first one, so another call was put out to get a third one on scene.

As crews worked to get traffic moving, a trailer was abandoned in the south bound lane, causing yet another tie-up; it turned out the driver who left it was towing two, and had to leave one behind to get up the hill. He'd planned to go to a safe place, drop off one, and return for the second, but the recovery was put on hold to get the piled-up traffic, including a couple of semis that had gotten stuck and had to chain up before they could proceed.

At 11:32 p.m. the deputy, sounding exhausted, reported that the stuck tow truck had been pulled out and work had started on removing the vehicle involved in the collision.

By then, traffic was moving, with firefighters directing traffic around the accident scene, rather than being staged up to a mile away in either direction so waiting traffic could be stopped on the flats.

Deputies were finally able to clear the scene at 11:41 p.m.