Icy roads cause spike in metro Atlanta crashes

ATLANTA --- Police scrambled to handle a spate of traffic wrecks Friday after a slick glaze of ice coated metro Atlanta's roads overnight, and authorities urged motorists to be especially careful as freezing weather persists through the weekend.

Cobb County police got reports of roughly 300 crashes between 4 p.m. Thursday and about 3 p.m. Friday in the unincorporated areas of the county. That's in a jurisdiction that normally sees a few dozen in a 24-hour stretch.

In Marietta, the county seat, police said they had so many calls they couldn't respond to them all and were telling people to exchange information and contact the department later for an accident report.

Between midnight and 11 a.m. Friday, about 130 wrecks were reported to Gwinnett County police. And in Cherokee County, police got reports of more than 80 crashes between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m.

About 29 vehicles were involved in a pre-dawn crash at the junction of two interstates near the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and three motorists were taken to hospitals.

Most of the accidents were minor fender benders caused by vehicles sliding into each other at relatively low speeds, but the Georgia Department of Transportation reported at least two fatalities in weather-related wrecks, including a 50-year-old woman in the far northern suburb of Acworth, who died after skidding off a road late Thursday.

An off-duty Cobb County police officer stopped at 9:35 a.m. to help a sheriff's deputy whose vehicle had slid into a retaining wall on his way to work. When a third driver lost control and careened toward them, the two men leapt down a 20-foot embankment. Both were taken to area hospitals, where they were treated and released. The third driver wasn't injured.

Interstates were cleared quickly and remained relatively dry because DOT made them a priority, spokesman David Spear said. But secondary roads, including many major arteries in downtown Atlanta, remained covered with a sheen of ice.

A light dusting of snow overnight Thursday turned the capital city white, with just more than half an inch sticking to lawns, cars and buildings. The National Weather Service reported that Hiawassee and Ellijay in the north Georgia mountains got the heaviest snow, more than two inches. The rest of north Georgia saw between half an inch and an inch.