By Katharine Jackson
WASHINGTON -Thousands of people were trapped in their vehicles for hours along a nearly 50-mile stretch of Interstate 95 in Virginia after a storm dumped up to a foot of snow, forcing the highway to close, officials said on Tuesday.
I-95, a major north-south thoroughfare on the East Coast, was closed in both directions near Fredricksburg, about 55 miles south of Washington, the Virginia Department of Transportation said.
Traffic on the 47-mile stretch of the highway came to a standstill at about 8 p.m. on Monday and was still not moving late on Tuesday morning. The distance normally takes less than an hour to drive.
Desperate motorists trapped for hours in freezing weather, some of them without food or water and with their vehicles running out of fuel, flooded social media with posts.
“I’m going on 15 hours with two dogs in the car. Stuck at Woodford, VA and not moving,” one driver tweeted.
Aerial video from Washington television station WRC showed hundreds of cars and trucks jammed on one side while most lanes of I-95 were closed to regular traffic and snowplows cleared the road.
State and local emergency personnel worked through the night to clear downed trees, assist disabled vehicles and reroute drivers, Governor Ralph Northam said in an interview with radio station WTOP on Tuesday.
“With the sun up now, that will certainly help us, but we need to get people off the road. We have food, warming shelters in place, and we’re getting to these individuals as fast as we can,” he said.
But authorities, including Northam and the Virginia Department of Transportation, came under fierce criticism for the state’s response and failure to call in the National Guard. Some called on President Joe Biden to mobilize federal resources to rescue stranded drivers and reopen the highway.
“This is insane. Nothing is being done, 911 isn’t much help, neither is Virginia state police. And the state has yet to contact National Guard. Insane,” wrote one Twitter user who claimed to have been stuck on I-95 south for hours.
Northam told WTOP the National Guard was available, but said it had not been mobilized yet.
The U.S. Department of Transportation posted a Twitter message saying it was ready to help the state reopen the highway and assist motorists.
Volunteers were doing what they could to help.
“Reply with need AND MILE MARKER and we’ll try to connect you to other drivers in your area who might be able to share some supplies with you,” tweeted Reagan Battalion, a conservative political organization.
In another volunteer effort, someone passed out Schmidt Old Tyme bread after the company agreed to open one of its trucks stranded on the interstate, a local CBS reporter caught in the standstill said.
Among those stranded was U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who spent the night on I-95 when his car became trapped while he was en route to Washington.
“I started my normal 2 hour drive to DC at 1pm yesterday. 19 hours later, I’m still not near the Capitol,” Kaine tweeted early on Tuesday along with a photo from his car sandwiched between trucks.
