Was I-35W treated for ice before deadly Fort Worth pileup? Video offers some details
The group responsible for ice prevention on the stretch of highway that was the site of a 133-car pileup treated the road for ice two days before the wreck, according to a video shown to North Texas lawmakers.
But legislators still have questions about the circumstances of the Feb. 11 wreck that left six people dead.
State Rep. Ramon Romero, D-Fort Worth, said the video showed North Tarrant Express Mobility Partners’ pretreatment truck applying brine — a solution of salt and water on Feb. 9 — to Interstate 35W between Northeast 28th Street and Northside Drive. The solution is good for 72 hours but is best for dry conditions, Romero said.
Lawmakers were not provided evidence the brine was reapplied after Tuesday, Romero said.
“There’s many more discussions about whether or not this brine solution is the right solution — how and when it should be replied,” Romero said
Romero, Sen. Beverly Powell, D-Burleson, and Rep. Terry Canales, an Edinburg Democrat who chairs the House Transportation committee, were show the footage Friday during a virtual meeting with officials from NTE Mobility Partners and the Texas Department of Transportation, Romero said.
The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency that reviews transportation accidents, is investigating the crash, focusing on snow and ice treatment procedures.
The pileup started soon after 6 a.m. The roads were covered by what appeared to be a sheet of ice. On the morning of the wreck, surface temperatures were below freezing and weather radar showed a small cloud of freezing rain moving across the I-35W corridor near the Fort Worth Stockyards.
Following the crash, Texas lawmakers called for an investigation that includes how the roads were treated to prevent freezing.
Romero said he was shocked to hear that NTE Mobility Partner’s chief executive officer, Alberto Gonzalez, hadn’t reviewed the footage of the wreck.
“I found it really interesting that they had a camera angle of exactly where they needed to be, of where the accident happened, proving that it was de-iced on Tuesday, Romero said. “But here the CEO of this organization, of this company — private company — can then tell me that he has not yet seen the video of the accident, from that same camera.”
I-35W is owned and operated by the Texas Department of Public Safety, but the state has partnered with NTE Mobility partners to build and maintain Tarrant County highways with TEXPress toll lanes.
Robert Hinkle, spokesman for NTE Mobility Partners, has said maintenance crews began pre-treating its corridors on Tuesday and had been “spot treating” since.
In the days after the pileup, North Texas experienced another emergency situation when many in the region and across the state were left without power amid frigid weather. The response of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — a nonprofit corporation that’s regulated by the Public Utility Commission — has been criticized by elected officials.
The pileup and the outages, which spanned days for some, raise questions about public-private partnerships entered into by the state, Romero suggested.
“The competition is good because the best always come to the top, but without some government boundaries and guidelines, some minimum standards, this is what we ended up with,” Romero said.
Romero called the wreck “unacceptable.”
“We’re not going to rest until we get answers,” he said.
Staff writer Gordon Dixon contributed to this report.
