Snow causes slow morning commute

Another blast of winter weather created problems for commuters Tuesday morning, especially in northern Utah.

As of 9:30 a.m, the Utah Highway Patrol reported 35 accidents in Salt Lake County with damage or minor injuries in addition to several slide-offs. In Utah County there were seven reported accidents with injury or damage in addition to slide-offs.

The worst accident happened about 5:45 a.m. on southbound I-15 near 450 North in Ogden. A semitrailer going too fast for the weather conditions jackknifed, hit another vehicle and crashed, said Utah Highway Patrol trooper Cameron Roden. No one in either vehicle was injured, but the truck blocked all lanes of traffic, creating a huge backup, he said.

Cars were able to get around the semitrailer only in the emergency lane, Roden said. By 8:30 a.m., more lanes of traffic had reopened, but there was still residual backing, he said.

The snow started falling in the Salt Lake Valley shortly after, causing a number of slide-offs and crashes into barricades. Roden said as of 8:30 a.m. there were no serious injuries.

Power had also been restored to most of the Wasatch Front by 9 a.m. Tuesday.

At one point during Monday's storm, there were up to 5,000 people without power, mainly in the Ogden and Layton areas, according to Rocky Mountain Power.

A storm-related weather problem in the Provo-Orem area caused 388 customers to be without power. Most of those homes had power restored by 1:20 a.m. About 125 customers in Millville in Cache County were without power for about 90 minutes before it was restored about 1:30 a.m., according to Rocky Mountain Power.

About 140 customers in the Wellsville area were without power Tuesday morning due to a pole fire.

The areas to the north and south of Salt Lake County seemed to get the brunt of Monday's storm. The National Weather Service reported 14 new inches of new snow in Layton by Monday night and 18 inches in Alpine.

The Utah Avalanche Center listed Tuesday's danger level as "moderate" with some pockets of "considerable" avalanche danger on slopes steeper than 35 degrees, according to the center's Web site.

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