Wyoming Closes 200 Miles of I-80 Under Colorado Winter Storm Warnings
Colorado winter storm warnings came as a snowstorm shut down more than 200 miles of Interstate 80 in southern Wyoming on Monday, leaving motorists stranded for hours and, in some cases, overnight. The closure stretched across a major interstate corridor and slowed the work needed to reopen it.
Both the westbound and eastbound lanes between Rock Springs and Cheyenne were closed to all through traffic by 10:46 a.m. Monday. Wyoming Department of Transportation crews were clearing 4-foot drifts by noon, while wind gusts up to 45 mph and wet, heavy snow left pavement slick with slush.
Jordan Young on stuck vehicles
Jordan Young, WYDOT’s deputy public affairs officer, said the agency had heard anecdotally of stuck vehicles between Laramie and Rock Springs. He said plowing drifts from stuck and stopped vehicles could delay reopening the highway. A WYDOT snowplow was struck near the Wagonhound Rest Area between Arlington and Elk Mountain.
One truck driver said after 11 hours of waiting, “I figured I was going to be here until tomorrow morning,” a line that matched the scene along the corridor Monday as traffic slowed to a stop. As of publication time Monday evening, the estimated reopening time for the westbound and eastbound lanes between Rawlins and Laramie was between 6 and 8 a.m. Tuesday.
Carbon County outage
Don Day said there had been reports of 30 inches of snow in Snowy Range, while as much as 10 inches fell in some places along the highway. Around 2 a.m. Monday, a power transmission line in Carbon County was damaged, leaving Rawlins, Sinclair and Wamsutter without power for most of the day. That outage also hampered WYDOT’s effort to clear Interstate 80.
Jodi Burrer, a Bar Nunn resident, said, “They couldn’t fuel up in Rawlins because the power was out,” and added, “They had to get the plows to Sinclair to fill up.” With the outage limiting fueling and the snow loading drifts onto the road, the cleanup moved slower than the closure alone would have suggested.
Rawlins to Rock Springs
Marianne Nelson, a Rawlins resident and Wyoming State Penitentiary employee, got on Interstate 80 at 5:15 a.m. Monday for her commute. By 11 a.m., she said, “I’ve got three semitrucks parked in front of me,” and, “I guess there's a tow truck somewhere, but he's stuck, too. I can’t see anything, and I only have a quarter of a tank of gas.”
By publication time Monday evening, both lanes between Rawlins and Rock Springs were anticipated to reopen by midnight Tuesday. Cheyenne had no significant snowfall on Monday, but westbound I-80 was put on a rolling closure so towns would not be overwhelmed where snowfall had made highway passage impossible.
