CRASHES PEPPER COUNTY

AFTER SNOWSTORM HITS

Crashes were peppering Otsego County’s main arteries this afternoon, as the first big winter storm, on Thanksgiving, the busiest traffic weekend of the year, began in earnest

Snow began in earnest at about 10 a.m.  With snows coming in from the southeast, Oneonta was hardest hit first, but by mid-afternoon the whole county was feeling the impact.

Between 3 and 3:40 on Route 28 between I-88 and Cooperstown, at least three cars were off the road, one just north of the highway, another just south of Taylor’s at Goodyear Lake, and a third — just north of Milford — blocked traffic both ways for 20 minutes.

The dispatcher at State Police in Oneonta said roads were slippery “everywhere,” and that the barracks had received numerous reports of accidents throughout its service area.  The Otsego County sheriff’s dispatcher said there was so much going on he couldn’t take the time to detail it.

The National Weather Service’s Winter Storm Warning remained in effect, with snows expected to continue in Cooperstown until 1 a.m., then to resume at 4 a.m.  Accumulation was expected to be 5 inches.  In Oneonta, snows were expected to abate by midnight, but to pick up again at 3 a.m.