First responders urge caution with winter conditions in Weber County
Jan 2, 2025, 7:00 PM | Updated: 7:19 pm
MOUNTAIN GREEN, Weber County —A plea to drivers to slow down. This comes after nearly a dozen cars were involved in crashes along Interstate 84 in Morgan County early Thursday morning.
First responders said that people are driving too confident and careless. Conditions along Weber Canyon can vary and change quickly. In the past week, that’s meant a lot of crashes.
During an unseasonably warm winter, Chief Brian Brendel with the Mountain Green Fire Protection District said far too many people are learning the lessons of canyon driving the hard way.
“People may have been lulled into a false sense of security because it’s not brutally cold,” Brendel said. “The wreck that we ran this morning were all pretty seasoned folks, but they kind of had the rug pulled out from under them.”
Brendel is talking about a crash involving four vehicles altogether in an area where the wet roads suddenly turned to setting snow.
“So when they reached this really slick area,” Brendel said. “We had one car, one pick up after another, pick up after other vehicles just crash.”
Four people became trapped in three vehicles and two horses were trapped in a trailer. Luckily, no obvious injuries.
The highway was shut down for almost an hour this morning near mile marker 93 and between 6:30 and 8 a.m., Utah Highway Patrol logged eleven crashes.
“You may be the best driver ever, but you need to realize that conditions can change and fool you very quickly,” Brendel said.
And just the day before, Brendel said a semi truck slid off near Peterson, while a car slid off the day before that.
Typically Brendel’s biggest concern during the winter is closer to the Weber and Morgan County line, where the bridge can ice up.
“When the weather turns, we manage to run an awful lot of ice skating events out on the freeway,” Brendel said.
Thankfully, all of these crashes mentioned had no major injuries, granted that’s not always the case. Brendel said you need to slow down and pay attention. Don’t take what’s happening right before you for granted, because it switches instantly.
