John Lutz, Operations and Maintenance Manager for Nebraska Department of Transportation District 5, says as of 2:00 PM today, all highways in the district are closed. District 5 covers all 11 Panhandle counties.
Lutz says decisions on reopening roads will be made on a case-by-case basis, but at this point he doesn’t expect any roads to reopen until at least sometime tomorrow – if then.
While snow and ice are a major part of the problem, he says the biggest challenge at this time is blowing snow reducing visibility to dangerous levels. As a result, most plows in the Panhandle are not running at this time, but are waiting for conditions to improve.
Lutz also says that reinforcements of a sort are on the way with plows, blowers, and trucks coming from other parts of the state that haven’t been hit quite as hard. Their arrival, though, also depends on conditions improving.
HIGHWAY CLOSURES NDOT DISTRICT 5
2 Hemingford West to Hwy 71
2 Alliance East to Grant County Line
L7E Hwy 87 to Hemingford
19 Sidney to Colorado State Line
20 Wyoming State line to Cherry Co. Line
26 WY State Line to Lewellen
L62A Hwy 26 to Hwy 385
27 South Dakota Line to Hwy 2
27 Oshkosh to Hwy 30
29 Harrison to Mitchell
30 Wyoming State to Big Springs
71 South Dakota State Line to Colorado State Line
80 Wyoming State to Big Springs
87 South Dakota Line to Alliance
88 Bridgeport to WY State Line
L79E Minatare to Hwy 92
92 Wyoming State to Bridgeport
250 Rushville to Hwy 2
385 South Dakota State Line to Sidney
385 CO State Line to Chappell
Is hwy 2 south of Crawford open yet
At the time of this post, no. Nothing north of Alliance is open. Updated road conditions can be found at https://new.511.nebraska.gov/