A car travels down North Copus Road covered in ice and snow during Friday’s treacherous weather mix.
Craig J. Orosz | The Lima News
LIMA — Rain turned to sleet, then to snow across the region on Friday.
Most schools closed and athletic events were postponed for the evening and some even into today.
The decision to close prior to the wintry weather arriving, is something school superintendents take seriously.
“This one was a lot of agonizing because of the timing of it, but one thing that’s helpful is the public schools superintendents within Allen County, we all are constantly in communication with each other and I know that sometimes their county conditions are different than the city conditions but in this case we were all really bouncing it off of each other and thinking about in advance the what-ifs,” said Jill Ackerman, superintendent of Lima schools.
The safety of the student is the prime criteria on whether to close or not.
“We knew that it wouldn’t be doing much of anything other than raining when we left to go to school but we knew there was a risk that once we got into school there would be icy conditions and we just don’t drive the buses and drop the kids off and the buses go back to the bus garage until the end of the day, we’re running routes all day long, so the last thing we want to do is put buses on the road if we believe that there is going to be ice out there,” she said.
The bigger concern would be what would it be like at dismissal time.
“We have students that drive, walk or ride bikes. The last thing we would really ever want to do is get into school and then have try to dismiss early. It can be difficult, making sure that everybody’s able to have somebody come and get them and then you have to worry about staff getting out as well,” Ackerman added.
Law enforcement agencies kept busy with the wintry conditions.
The Allen County Sheriff’s Office reported more than a dozen minor accidents, without injuries while the Lima Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol reported around 10 crashes with two of them resulting in minor injuries. Those were on I-75, one near Bluelick Road the other around the 127 mile marker.
Putnam and Allen Counties issued Level 1 snow advisories late Friday afternoon. Putnam County increased that to a level 2 advisory just before 7 p.m.
Reach Sam Shriver at 567-242-0409.
