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Rain is expected to fall overnight and temperatures should dip below freezing, causing some icy spots on the roads early Wednesday. But problems are not expected to be as widespread as today, when freezing rain caused dozens of local wrecks and forced Guilford County Schools to pull its buses off the road.

Temperatures tonight will be above freezing when the rain begins, unlike Tuesday when they were freezing when the rain began, according to the National Weather Service. That will help reduce, but not eliminate, the threat of icy roads on Wednesday.

Temperatures will quickly rise through the 30s shortly after sunrise Wednesday.

Today's icy road caused numerous wrecks and traffic delays, especially in Guilford and Randolph counties. No serious injuries or deaths were reported before the National Weather Service canceled its winter weather advisory shortly after 1 p.m.

Guilford County Schools opened as scheduled this morning. About 8:30 a.m., however, the district ordered all buses parked until road conditions improved. One bus had just dropped off students at McLeansville Elementary and had picked up three Eastern Middle students when it was ordered off the road. It idled in the parking lot behind Mount Hope United Methodist Church for about 90 minutes, then drove off promptly at 10 a.m.

Just after 11 a.m., Guilford County Schools said it had told its bus drivers to complete their routes and go to their assigned schools. If road conditions remained poor, drivers were told to unload students at the nearest schools.

At a 4 p.m. news conference, school officials reported:

* There were five bus accidents causing two minor injuries to Guilford County Schools staff members

* Fifty school buses were delayed in their routes to get students to school. Approximately 90 percent of buses arrived safely on time.

* Some parents didn’t know the whereabouts of their children for more than an hour as school buses stopped along roadsides or at the nearest school to wait out Tuesday morning’s icy conditions.

The school system released students at the regular time. However, all after-school activities were canceled, and end-of-course exams for high school students were postponed. (See the new exam schedule)


Treacherous road conditions, thanks to a freezing drizzle and temperatures in the high 20s, caused crashes throughout the Triad.

The Highway Patrol said troopers responded to more than 100 wrecks, according to the agency's communications office in Greensboro. At one point this morning there were more accident calls coming in than there are troopers to respond to them, a dispatcher said. Guilford Metro 911 said that there were as many as 50 accidents reported at any one time this morning. Supervisor Sherleen Burnette said some people had been taken to hospitals, but she didn't know of any accidents causing serious injuries or deaths.

Elizabeth Albiston, an attorney from Chapel Hill, passed about four wrecks on westbound Interstate 40/85 before being involved in one of her own near Mount Hope Church Road. She said her Volkswagen Golf slid on some ice and somebody hit her back bumper. Her car was dented, but still drivable.

"I just hit some ice," she said. "There's ice everywhere."

Gilberto Rodriguez rolled his Ford Explorer on Wendover Avenue around 8 a.m. The Greensboro man said he was driving east and had just gone past the Huffine Mill Road overpass when he switched lanes, slid, hit a curb and rolled up an embankment. The SUV landed wheels down. Rodriguez was wearing his seat belt and was unhurt.

A wreck involving a school bus and a fire department vehicle occurred on Southeast School Road about 9 a.m. The bus had slid to a stop in the middle of the road when the truck responding to a call lost control and struck the bus, according to the Highway Patrol. The bus driver and somebody who had stopped to help were struck and taken to the hospital.

The bus was part of the First Student fleet. No students were on board. The Highway Patrol didn't have names or conditions of the two injured people.

The weather appears to be clearing up.

An Arctic high that brought the first round of below-normal temperatures will move offshore and allow for a sunny and warmer day in the 40s on Wednesday. But temperatures will plunge again as another Arctic high brings more cold air in Thursday and Friday, with low temperatures in the teens Friday morning, said Brandon Vincent, a meteorologist with the Weather Service in Raleigh.