Mica Hill Accidents Draw Concern But State Says More De-Icer Used On Road Than Last Winter

Don Sausser has counted at least 11 accidents he says were caused by icy, slippery conditions on Mica Hill this winter.

That’s unusually high, says the secretary and treasurer of the Mica Kidd Island Fire Association.

“There have been an inordinate number of responses this year. We just feel that there hasn’t been the maintenance that there has been in years past,” Sausser said.

Most of the accidents he noted - including a fatality Thursday - happened between mileposts 416 and 425.

Sausser has written three letters to the Idaho Transportation Department, asking about the apparently high number of accidents. He commended the department’s maintenance of the roads in the past, but said he thinks maintenance of the roads in the past two or three years has declined.

The Transportation Department denies that it has failed to perform as well as in the past.

“We are doing nothing different than we had in the past,” said Barbara Babic, a spokeswoman for the department. In fact, “we have used more de-icer than we did last winter,” she said.

She questioned whether there actually has been an unusually high number of accidents this winter.

“I think that’s a speculation on Mr. Sausser’s part,” she said.

Neither the Mica Kidd Island Fire Association nor the Transportation Department knew how many accidents had occurred on Mica Hill due to icy road conditions.

Kootenai County Commissioner Ron Rankin, who drives on Highway 95 on Mica Hill daily, said he plans to meet with the Transportation Department to talk about snow and ice removal on Mica Hill.

He said he’ll see “if we can’t get them to be a little more effective and to pay a little more attention to what they’re doing. People’s lives are in their hands and they need to take that into consideration.”

The Transportation Department dispatch center is in Boise after 4 p.m., and Rankin worries that could make the department out of touch with the road conditions in North Idaho.

Babic, however, pointed out that maintenance crews for the Transportation Department work on the roads 24 hours per day seven days per week.

“So someone is always out there,” she said.

The crews also work with the Idaho State Patrol to keep the roadways safe. She says having the dispatch center in Boise has worked out very well.

“So that’s not a concern,” she said.

Rankin said he is unconvinced the Transportation Department is doing everything as well as it should.

“Whatever they’re doing, they’re not doing enough or we wouldn’t be having all these collisions,” he said.

, DataTimes