PHOTOS: I-25 Buried Under Snow Shows Why Parts of it are Closed
Mother Nature is not messing around.
Since this weekend, a massive snow storm has shut down multiple highways and byways. I-80 was closed for hours on Saturday and Sunday, after two crashes involving 40 separate vehicles.
I-80 wasn't the only interstate affected by the weather, however. I-25 has been impacted as well, with various parts of the highway closing all throughout Wyoming. In fact, as of this writing, I-25 from Glendo to Cheyenne is closed.
"As of February 01 at 04:30 p.m., the estimated opening time is in 18 to 20 hours," the Wyoming Department of Transportation wrote on their website. "Parking on the roadway is prohibited and delays opening the road."
And while one Wyoming woman didn't park on the roadway, she did snap a couple pictures of I-25 which perfectly explains why the highway is closed.
Gayle Russel lives right right off I-25, near the Bordeaux exit at mile marker 77. She took some photos of what the Bordeaux underpass looked like this afternoon and it did not look pretty (well, it did look pretty, but it didn't look safe).
The photos were shared more than 1,000 times and countless people were left stunned by these whiteout conditions.
"Why don't they put some salt down?" one person sardonically asked.
"I hope someone's planning to work on that so we don't run out of gas and food," another person offered.
"God bless Wyoming - keeping the locals in and the crazy out," another commenter surmised.
And so on.
The person who took the photo, Gayle Russell, told K2 Radio News that she's lived in Wyoming for a long time but has never seen the interstate this bad.
"I actually live at Bordeaux exit 10 miles south of Wheatland," Russell told K2 Radio News. "The white outs are the worst. A person has no idea where anything is. My neighbors are all native Wyomingites so we're used to hunkering down and then shoveling out. I have never seen the Bordeaux underpass drifted shut. I have a nephew that lives at the very end of Bordeaux Road. It's going to need the rotary plow to get him out, the same with many other roads around here."
It's a scary situation for some, but Russell said she and her family are prepared.
"We keep plenty of food on hand," she revealed. "My mom always had us fill the bathtub with water in case the power goes out! We still do it!"
It's good advice. Hopefully it doesn't get to that point. City and state workers are working tirelessly to plow the roads and interstates as much as possible, but with the Wyoming wind, their work is sometimes fruitless.
Which is why portions of the interstate will remain closed.
For updates on road closures, visit the WYDOT website.