Just after 9 p.m. Thursday night snow started to fall in Michiana. It's part of a winter storm that started in the west and is headed our way. Right after the snow started to fall salt and plow trucks could be see driving up and down the roads spraying salt. INDOT said dozens of plow trucks are on the road and about 170 trucks are at the ready as they are needed. As of 10:30 p.m. INDOT said the state roads across Northwest Indiana were rated as "fair" or "good."
Before all the snow started falling Michiana experienced a lot of rain. That's when our cameras caught up with holiday travelers trying to beat the snow and get to their loved ones before the worst of the storm hit. Darrell Kerbel said, "This is probably the worst that I've had to drive in so far this year." But he still admitted that the conditions Thursday afternoon were better than what he expected. "I was even thinking about not even attempting to go home tonight and getting a hotel or staying on extra night but I thought I'd take my chances," said Kerbel.
Several other holiday travelers took their chances too. Howard Stiles said, "we've been going through some wicked bad rain storms, torrential rain. He was traveling from Maine to Wisconsin to stay with his son for the Holidays. "Living in the great state of Maine we get some snow too so it doesn't intimidate us too much," said Stiles. Even though he knows what to do in snow, "slow down and if it gets bad pull off the road," he admits he still didn't want to have to drive through much of it Thursday. And Kerbel agreed he wanted to get home before the roads got very bad, "Hopefully I'll make it, I have this nightmare of getting stuck in a truck stop for the night."
