By now it feels like a dream, or maybe a fading nightmare. The seven-day snowstorm that hammered Summit, Vail and I-70 earlier this month jammed up thousands of travelers, closed roads for hours, and sent one truck off the road in an avalanche.
There were traction laws and safety closures. U.S Highway 6 at Loveland Pass did not open for four days. I-70 closed 18 separate times. Multiple commercial motor vehicles jackknifed and stalled almost daily. A horse trailer crashed (the animals were uninjured.)
Now CDOT explains why it never imposed a trailer ban for the mountain corridor:
“CDOT’s teams – maintenance & operations, weather forecasters and public information officers – all work together to determine what travel restrictions to implement during significant storms, such as traction and chain laws, safety closures, and CMV restrictions. CDOT did not consider a CMV restriction during the Presidents’ Day weekend as it was forecasted that the corridor would experience daytime snowfall accumulations of only a few inches of snow. The snow squalls that affected some sections of the corridor were unexpected.”
In early November CDOT did impose a rare trailer ban, when a snowstorm met its criteria:
“The restriction was implemented in November last year because of the magnitude of that particular snowstorm – affecting the EB/WB I-70 at the Colorado/Kansas border and I-25 at the Colorado/New Mexico border – the duration of the storm event and the amount of snow accumulations.”
During that storm trailers were not allowed on the mountain corridor for 18 hours. It never closed