Icy weather conditions are believed to have contributed to two separate fatalities on Interstate 55 in Lincoln County and dozens more traffic accidents across southwest Mississippi on Thursday.
The fatalities were two of at least 61 traffic accidents the Mississippi Highway Patrol worked on Thursday, when a cold front producing a mix of freezing rain and sleet hit southwest Mississippi.
Highway Patrol spokes-man Sgt. Rusty Boyd said the fatalities occurred within about nine hours of each other in opposite lanes at about the same location on I-55 between Wesson and Brookhaven.
The first occurred about 12:02 p.m. Thursday in the southbound lane at mile marker 45 when Laurie N. Sanders, 23, of Hazlehurst, lost control of her 2001 Ford Sportrac when the pickup apparently struck a patch of ice and ran into the highway median, striking some trees.
Lincoln County Coroner Clay McMorris pronounced Sanders dead at the scene.
McMorris said the second accident occurred about 9:30 p.m. in the northbound lane of I-55 at the same mile marker.
McMorris said Konstadinos Dilioglou, 75, of Greece, was killed when the 2000 GMC Yukon in which he was a passenger left the highway and went down an embankment.
Dilioglou was pronounced dead in the emergency room of Kings’s Daughters Medical Center in Brookhaven. McMorris said Dilioglou’s wife, Sotiria, 68, and his daughter, Smaroula Dilioglou, who was driving the vehicle, were treated and released. McMorris said the family had been visiting relatives in Texas and were on their way to the daughter’s home in Jackson at the time of the accident.
The I-55 fatalities were the only highway deaths reported by area law enforcement.
The Highway Patrol was not the only agency dealing with traffic accidents.
In Lawrence County, three Alcorn State University students escaped injury after their eastbound car hit a patch of ice on an overpass on Highway 84 near Monticello.
The car entered the highway median, flipped and landed upside down on a guardrail in the westbound lane, according to Lawrence County Undersheriff Willie Wallace.
Wallace said one of the railing supports punctured the roof of the car. None of the men were injured, he said. He said the accident was one of about 20 that Lawrence County authorities worked Thursday.
Franklin County authorities reported 25 accidents, many on Highway 84 in the Lucien area, where cars were reported sliding off the highway.
“We actually saw wrecks happen while we worked with the Highway Patrol on other wrecks,” Franklin County Sheriff James Newman said.
He said the stretch of Highway 84 at Lucien was closed for about two hours late Thursday afternoon after an 18-wheeler slid on the slick road and jackknifed, blocking both sides of the highway.
Boyd said troopers worked 14 accidents in Brookhaven Thursday, adding that one MHP patrol car was damaged on I-55 when a jackknifed 18-wheeler slid into it while a trooper was working an accident.
He said the car was parked off the highway and the trooper, who was out of the car, was not injured.
In other areas:
• McComb police worked a number of accidents scattered across the city Thursday, many of them involving cars going off Interstate 55 because of ice on the highway.
The exact number of accidents was undetermined at presstime.
• Walthall County emergency manager Roland Vandenweghe said authorities worked four accidents on Highway 98 near the Marion County line.
• Amite County authorities reported several accidents in the the Amite River bottom area of Highway 24 east of Liberty, where cars ran off the highway.
Law enforcement officers said one contributor to the accidents was the de-icer the Mississippi Department of Transportation sprayed on highway bridges and overpasses.
They said the chemical, which is supposed to keep ice from forming, failed to work properly.
Bobby Wells, maintenance engineer for MDOT, said the de-icer was sprayed on the bridges before the wet weather hit and the road surfaces were dry.
When the rains hit, he said, they apparently diluted the de-icer, causing problems and forcing crews to go back out and put sand and salt on the bridges.
“This was the first time we used the de-icer in the rain,” Wells said. “We used it in the snow last year, and it worked fine.”
He said de-icer was reapplied Thursday night when the rain quit, and worked well. He said road crews were out today checking bridges and overpasses.
Wells said MDOT officials are watching the highways and will determine what action to take to resolve icing problems tonight, when temperatures are expected to drop to 27 degrees.
