It's all in a cold day's work for ISP

Erik Hackman, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
·3 min read

Jan. 30—SOUTHERN INDIANA — Tuesday's weather forecast included a 40% chance of wintry mix with a high of 34 degrees throughout the day. Similar weather but colder was forecast for Tuesday night.

Staying safe during the winter is a task that everyone should be mindful of. The Indiana State Police are.

Winter for ISP means taking care of their cars and making sure the vehicles are ready to go when needed, staying bundled up and keeping updated by the National Weather Service. And, trying to keep the roadways safe while helping those who venture out.

The weather service tells officers what they need to expect. This information helps them prepare as much as they can before the changing weather hits.

If a major winter storm comes through, Sgt. Carey Huls, public information officer at the Sellersburg post, says "it is an all-hands-on-deck situation."

"We'll still keep our normal shifts for the most part until it actually hits and we see what actually hit the roads," Huls said.

He added that when the weather is bad, some officers have to be called in to work on their days off. In rare cases, some officers have to postpone a vacation.

The Sellersburg Post serves a combined population of almost 300,000 with Clark and Floyd counties making up a little more than 200,000 of that. There are 45 officers at the post to serve the area.

A 2019 report from the Indiana Department of Transportation on the numbers of miles traveled annually in counties listed 4,462,000 in vehicles for Clark and 2,777,000 for Floyd. For commercial vehicles, the report listed 522,000 for Clark and 185,000 for Floyd.

ISP keeps an eye on the interstates, and Huls provides regular updates on road conditions and accidents through social media accounts for the post.

In 2022 from August through September, the state police at the Sellersburg post responded to 142 car crashes in Southern Indiana, Huls said. Then from November through December they responded to 157 car crashes. The increase was mild because the winter did not have many harsh storms.

"When it gets really bad, we may not do a crash report for every crash," Huls said. "If it's really bad outside and there's slide-off crashes all over the place, we're going to respond to the injury crashes and major property crashes first. If you had a fender-bender type of crash in the wintertime, we may just give you the insurance form that you need and that's it."

In 2014, ISP responded to 117 crashes in August through September. The winter that year had a bad storm and 219 crashes happened in November through December.

"Typically when you're working a crash, you're going to spend anywhere from a half hour to a couple hours at a crash scene," Huls said. "So, multiply that by 100, that's how many hours were spent working crashes during that time."