The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

I had to get out for a while today and saw a lot of different road conditions out there. I took my daughter to 61st and Garnett for her indoor soccer game and the Tulsa side of 61st was well plowed and the Broken Arrow side looked untouched.

Leaving my neighborhood was touchy and it appeared the snowplows in Tulsa turned at Memorial leaving 21st street east of there pretty rough.

I also had to go to west Tulsa (a car or truck hit one of my glass dumpsters at the end of 51st street, knocking it back twenty feet). Union looked good but 51st was in bad shape.

Highway 169 was great, but I-244 only had a lane and a half cleared. Interstate 44 was in great shape when I cruised by around 3pm, but there were about half a dozen sideways cars on both sides of the road between Harvard and Yale.   

Around the 18th & Cincinnati area in the neighborhoods is awful. The area is hilly and the roads are slick ice. Too slick to walk on but great for sleds. If you can get to 21st, I hear it is clear and dry. We're going to try to make it to the movies, a holiday ritual.

We were out and about yesterday.  While 169, 51  and 44 were okay, the exchange ramps where horrible.  I ended up taking surface streets back home and those seemed to be in a lot better shape.  41st and 31st were fine, as well as al the cross streets seemed okay.  Mingo looked like it hadn't been touched.  We also headed to BA to go to walmart and it seemed that they didn't do anything to their streets at all.  You could tell when you crossed that city line.

After the sand is swept up the reflective lines might need to be re-painted so people can find their lanes.
--but that's still cheaper than lighting expressways all night.

Maybe if we stop lighting every road around town, car buyers will start to insist that cars have effective headlights.  I don't want to get into a color argument here.  I do think that the lenses of many recent vehicles provide a light pattern that is terrible at lighting the way ahead.  Some are even worse than the DOT mandated pattern on the old sealed beams.

I enjoy testing my mettle when these storms arrive. This one was particular fun because of the lighting issues. I had to pick my son up at Target during the peak of the storm and I only had a 90's model rear wheel drive Ford truck to do the deed. Remember, its a Ford. The heater is anemic which means the defroster sucks which means the wipers freeze up and....its a truck.  

Nonetheless, I was able to get it moving and stopping alright. I avoided the easy mistakes (driving down 15th under the BA exprwy, 21st below the BA expwy, 21st near Woodward and 31st east of Lewis). All you had to do was look at the vehicle flashers to note where not to go!

When the wind was swirling snow in front of me heading north on Utica from 31st, I realized my visibility was less than 100 ft. That was compounded by ALL the street lights in the area being turned off. I know that stretch of Utica is curvy and has odd intersections till it reaches Utica Square so I steered the vehicle by memory watching for trees and signs to figure out where the curves and the curbs were. It was like driving old country roads all over this part of town without the streetlights.

And what was EMSA thinking!? As I approached 15th & Utica heading East, the view of the intersection is already blocked by the Arvest building on the left and the streetlights were out there too. Its thundering, lightning and blizzard snow which made it worse. My light was green and I needed the momentum to get up the hill so I had pretty good speed. Then I see a d%#n ambulance coming from the South with no siren on! It was like playing chicken. I stopped so he could proceed but then had to divert to another route. Meanwhile all the 4wd Suburbans were insufferable driving at breakneck speed.

Never got stuck. It was a gas!

I went out to church yesterday (from 31st & 145th East Avenue).  145th (the tiny part between my apartment complex and 31st Street) was good.  31st had slick/snow packed patches from 145th to Garnett, then was pretty good to around Sheridan.  More slick/snowy patches between Sheridan and Harvard, but nothing real bad.

Harvard (at least around 8am) was snow packed from 31st to 21st, then cleared up some from 21st to 11th.  11th was pretty good into downtown.  Downtown streets were a nightmare-looked like they had not been touched, although one kind soul plowed one lane on Detroit.

Returning home, Elgin was snow packed, rutted and downright scary from 6th to 11th Streets.  11th Street was bone dry to Lewis.  Lewis was in fairly good shape from 11th to 15th Streets, and 15th was okay from Lewis to Yale.  Yale was in good shape-even dry in many places-from 15th to 31st Streets.

After hearing horror stories about the BA I didn't even attempt it-hence, I opted for surface streets.

Now, the management of my apartment complex has done absolutely nothing to clear snow for residents.  I'll be starting another thread . . .   >:(