Dozens of crashes during winter blast

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The winter weather wreaked havoc in Albuquerque Sunday morning after police said more than two dozen crashes were reported on one stretch of Interstate 40.

Snow flurries started coming down around Albuquerque’s downtown just before 7 a.m. A half hour later I-40 near Rio Grande was blanketed with snow. The cold temps turned that snow into the interstate into an ice-skating rink.

Police said a total of 26 crashes happened on I-40 from the Big I to Coors Boulevard, one of was DWI related.

Officers said 911 calls started pouring in around 7:40 a.m.

The New Mexico Department of Transportation spokesperson Phil Gallegos said that they got a call from APD around 8 a.m. and salt trucks were out on the road within the hour.

Gallegos said they didn’t have crews on standby because they didn’t anticipate snow conditions to hit the metro like this.

“Everything we had seen was southeast and further north,” Gallegos said. “Even on the radar when I looked later on, it looked like just a wrinkle that came over that part of the road.”

Gallegos said the spot where it dumped most of the snow, the bridge over the Rio Grande, is the reason roads turned into ice so fast.

“They get that cooler, air circulating underneath, so the surface area on that bridge, it’s a long bridge, its quite a bit colder than any where on the interstate,” Gallegos said.

Snow also blanketed I-40, just east of Gallup. Clines Corners was hit too and while Sunday morning’s blast of snow was over within a couple of hours more snow for the state was expected to continue Sunday night.

Gallegos said crews will be ready.

“That's certainly depending on the weather we're certainly monitoring that - if its necessary we will have guys out there in a moments notice,” Gallegos said.