Towing the line: Ice storm means business, long hours

By Editor | February 1, 2012 |

While Fayette County residents have been enjoying the spring-like weather in recent days, no one likely appreciates the warmer temperatures than Lynn McDowell.

McDowell, owner of McDowell’s Service, worked almost around the clock responding to calls for vehicles stranded by the ice storm on Friday evening, Jan. 27.
McDowell’s towing business was one of the three in Vandalia to respond to calls for assistance when ice covered roadways in the area.
McDowell said his business handled close to 100 calls on Friday evening and on Saturday, and that his service included the towing of five tractor-trailers and about 20 cars.
In addition to towing in those stranded vehicles, McDowell and six employees of his business also were pulling out stranded vehicles, transporting fuel, jump-starting vehicles and “throwing out some salt to allow vehicles to move.”
Also providing assistance to motorists were Dale May at Kelly’s Auto Repair and Towing, and Ed and Josh McCarty at McCarty’s Auto Body and Towing. All three towing businesses initially were called out shortly after road began to get ice-covered at about 4:30 p.m. on Friday.
May, who was filling in for vacationing business owner Kelly Devall, said he handled 12 tickets, with his ability to lend assistance hampered by his inability to move one vehicle.
May said he was towing a car into town when he was stranded in a traffic jam just a mile and a half from a Vandalia exit. He and the owner of that car sat in his truck from 6-11 p.m. on Friday night.
Ed McCarty said the business he operates with his son, Josh, handled about 10 calls, going out three different time to help stranded motorists.
McDowell said he was prepared to go wherever and whenever needed. That meant working out on the road for much of the period from 4:30 p.m. on Friday through about 7 a.m. on Saturday, after going into his shop at 6 a.m. on Friday.
McDowell went back out at about 9 a.m. on Saturday and worked until about 6 o’clock that evening.
He then worked much of the day on Sunday, towing in a tractor-trailer that was sitting on its top down an embankment, then finished up work from the storm by towing vehicles to other destinations on Monday and Tuesday.
He remembers taking one break Saturday morning, about 1 a.m., “when my feet got so cold. I sat down on a 5-gallon bucket near the furnace to get warm, and I fell asleep. I woke up when I heard some of my employees talking,” McDowell said, estimating that he got about 30 minutes of rest.
“I would go where I had to go,” he said, noting that he covered a radius of about 5 miles. “I told my wife (Shelley) that we’ve got to stay in this area.”
McDowell said that he compared to stranded motorists, he had the advantage of knowing how to read the road surface.
“You drive high on the crown of the road; you can’t make it if you don’t.
“I hardly ever use brakes in conditions like that. You use the gear and let the truck slow down,” he said, adding that he wasn’t always going forward.
“I backed probably 20 miles … at least,” he said.
McDowell said that when it stopped raining after midnight on Saturday, “I was starting to get control of things.”
That changed when it began raining again, and accidents periodically closed the closure of I-70.
The main problem is that a coating of ice slows down everything.
“A trip that normally takes 20 minutes can take an hour and a half or two hours,” McDowell said.
He’s in his 33rd year of towing, having started out with this father, Jim, at his gas station and towing business on Kennedy Boulevard.
In a little more than three decades, McDowell can remember only a couple of other winter storms that were as bad as the one on Jan. 27.
One in particular was the winter storm that began late on Saturday evening, Jan. 30, 1982, and dumped close to 2 feet of snow before ending.
“That was probably the worst,” McDowell said. “We were working on the interstate for three days with no traffic.”