The steep streets of Eureka Springs can be a challenge at the best of times, especially for out-of-town visitors. But add ice to the equation and you can have a scary ride.
One such incident was observed Sunday by resident Nancy Brooks while on the Benton St. sidewalk.
“I was going to walk downtown and I figured I could go down on the sidewalk and get enough traction,” Brooks said. “At the top of Benton, a car was stopped with its lights flashing, and looking down I saw a car sliding sideways down the hill. They had out-of-state plates and were obviously tourists. I walked down there to see if I could help them. They were petrified.”
Brooks asked the driver if he knew how to pump his brakes, explaining that you can tap gently on the brakes several times to help control skidding.
“Once he did that, he was able to back up and turn around,” Brooks said. “The woman at the top driving the car actually made it down. I saw two heavy four-wheel drive trucks make it up the hill, but any lightweight vehicle wasn’t going to make it up. It was deceiving, too, because it was really dry at the bottom of Benton. You kind of get sucked in and think, ‘This isn’t too bad.’ The farther you go up, the steeper it is and the more icy because it is shady. The steepest part has the most ice.”
Brooks said traffic cones were up on Mountain Street, which has the same problem being very steep and shaded from any sun. Benton St. has gates that can close off traffic, but those were not shut.
“It would probably inconvenience residents on the lower part of Benton if the gates were shut, so I understand why they didn’t close them,” Brooks said.
Social media contained accounts of a number of other roads in town that were still dangerous Sunday and even Monday after the storm on Saturday. Steep streets, particularly the east-west corridors, were the primary problem. People on Rockhouse Road reported a long stretch of ice on the steep part of the road before it reaches US 62.
Eureka Springs Police Department said they didn’t have much activity related to the storm. A spokesperson said it helped that Public Works employees were out making sure there was gravel put down where it was needed on slick roads. Crews from the state highway department were also out treating roads.
Eureka Springs didn’t have any ambulance calls related to the weather.
“This year we didn’t have any calls we had to go out on,” Assistant Fire and EMS Chief Jim Kelley said. “That means everyone else is fortunate when we don’t have to go out the door. It means everyone is having a good day.”
Kelley said they put chains on ambulances and fire trucks.
“Our ambulances are four-wheel drive and they have drop down chains that come down by a push of the button so we aren’t busy putting chains on when there is an ambulance call,” Kelley said. “Knock on wood, we didn’t have one call that day. It was totally unusual. The next day we had a couple ambulance calls, but nothing that we had to do that we were not prepared for. We got off lucky.”
Kelley said volunteers at the rural fire stations came in to make similar preparations for the storm.
This is the first time the fire department had to make preparations for winter weather this year. Kelley said he doesn’t think they had to put chains on even once during the winter of 2017-2018.
Despite the weather, some businesses in Eureka Springs were hopping and had plenty of out-of-town visitors.
“Guests loved the snow,” said Jack V. Moyer, vice president and general manager, 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa and 1905 Basin Park Hotel. “We have weekend guests to Eureka Springs who enjoy the town and our winter activities, including ice skating. We prepare for winter with our grounds crew so we had no significant impact from the storm.”
This past weekend the Crescent had guests for two weddings, as well as people attending the Ozark Mountain Music Festival at the Basin Park, and a grand opening was held Saturday for the ice skating rink located at the Crescent.