Hundreds of calls: Here’s a breakdown of Sedgwick County accidents amid snowstorm
There have been dozens of calls about accidents since a winter storm moved into the Wichita area early Thursday and hundreds of calls since roads became slick Wednesday morning, according to Sedgwick County Emergency Communications data.
The data shows an enormous uptick in the normal number of accidents first responders are called to. One accident could have multiple calls.
For comparison, from 9 a.m. Tuesday to 9 a.m. Wednesday, before road conditions started to rapidly deteriorate, there were 56 calls for accidents. From 9:01 a.m. Wednesday until 9 a.m. Thursday, there were 320 calls for accidents. That’s roughly a six-time increase in calls for accidents in a similar time period.
Light snow and worsening road conditions led to collisions starting Wednesday morning. Around 10 a.m. Wednesday, a semi wrecked on eastbound Kellogg near Tyler. No one was injured. An emergency communications supervisor said at the time that the “bridge is getting slick.”
Conditions got worse throughout the day. Wichita police tweeted just after 1:30 p.m. that officers were working 20 crashes around the city.
There were 287 calls about accidents to emergency communications from 9 a.m. Wednesday up until midnight. Many people were likely less prepared to have bad road conditions when they traveled home Wednesday. The storm didn’t hit until early Thursday, but road conditions started rapidly deteriorating Wednesday.
There were four accidents with injuries Wednesday on Sedgwick County highways, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol. There were only three across the whole state reported by KHP on Tuesday. Three of the Sedgwick County accidents mention ice or sliding. Two of those happened on I-135, then one each on K-254 and K-96.
On Thursday through 9 a.m., there were 33 reports of accidents in Sedgwick County, emergency communications data shows.
Three of those were reported as injury accidents.; 17 were non-injury accidents and 13 were for unknown accidents. The injury accidents were reported between 5:28 a.m. and 9:26 a.m. around Greenwich and Kellogg, K-96 near 21st and K-15 and I-135.
Of the 33 calls up until 9 a.m. Thursday, 16 were reported between 6:44 a.m. and 7:53 a.m., when people were making their morning commute to work.
The National Weather Service issued a snow squall warning for an area including Wichita from around 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and then again from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. A snow squall is an “intense short-lived burst of heavy snowfall that leads to a quick reduction in visibility and is often accompanied by gusty winds,” according to the NWS.
It is the first time Wichita has had one since the term was defined in 2018.
Winds Thursday morning were in the 20s and 30s with gusts in the 40s. The highest gust was 52 mph recorded before 2 a.m.
The temperature is forecast to rise slightly during the day and winds are expected to die down slightly. The snow has also stopped. All of those should make the evening commute home more bearable.
This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 1:51 PM.