Icy roads lead to several crashes and slide offs in Spokane region

Inland Northwest residents woke up to a shiny coat of ice on the roads Tuesday morning, leading to several crashes and slide offs.

Trooper Jeff Sevigney, spokesman for the Washington State Patrol, said a majority of the collisions happened on Interstate 90, where commuters weren’t taking road conditions into consideration.

“Too fast for conditions,” he said. “As usual.”

The National Weather Service warned that roads will be slick again Wednesday morning.

By 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, there were several slide offs on I-90, including a truck that became popped up on a guardrail facing the wrong direction on the westbound side of the freeway near Freya Street. Sevigney said other crashes were reported on Highway 2 and on State Route 95.

No injuries were reported.

Jeremy Wolf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Spokane, said a temperature inversion caused a low cloud deck to form over the region early this morning, leading to freezing drizzle at about 4:30 a.m. On roads where deicer was not present, it created sheets of ice that were difficult to spot.

The temperature at the Spokane International Airport was about 24 degrees at 7 a.m., when crashes were most prominent.