More than 500 cars towed by metro service during weekend blizzard
LENEXA, Kan. (KCTV) - Tow companies have been hard at work since the blizzard – picking up cars on the sides of the road, but also pulling them out of driveways.
Santa Fe Towing has 27 trucks out on the road, and between Saturday and noon today, they’ve towed 515 vehicles -- including more than a dozen plow trucks.
Zaquan Cox’s car broke down on Interstate 435 and Roe Avenue last night. He works at a supermarket in Kansas but commutes from Grandview.
“As I got to the highway, it started to shake, started to jerk, and then it ended up on the side of the highway,” Cox said. “My boss, who got off at midnight, he came, gave me a jump, and not even a minute or so – it died again.”
Jonathan Williams picked up the car Wednesday afternoon on the shoulder of the highway – he has even less room to work than normal, because of the snow that takes up most of the shoulder.
“It’s intense, but you just got to keep your head on a swivel, literally, just, just watch traffic,” Williams said. “People do need to learn to get over, but you know how that goes.”
Of the 515 tows, Williams has done 35 of them for Santa Fe, according to Office Manager Kaleigh Kupchin.
“A lot of it is people hitting ice and sliding off and needing to be pulled out,” Kupchin said.
If you are in a situation like that, the recommendation from the Missouri and Kansas Highway Patrols and Department of Transportation, along with Santa Fe is consistent – stay in your vehicle. It’s a barrier between you and all the other traveling cars.
The other side of that is the cars that are stuck in their driveways. Santa Fe said there are around 35 vehicles that need a tow, but they can’t reach them right now because their street hasn’t been plowed.
Santa Fe’s record for the amount of vehicles towed in one day is 250. They set that number last year during a winter storm.
“We’re hustling, but we haven’t hit record-breaking numbers yet, and I think that has a lot to do with everybody staying home, the highways shutting down,” Kupchin said. “Everybody was fair warned, and people took it seriously this time.”
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