Call for help unheeded in Virginia interstate disaster

RICHMOND, Va. (NewsNation Now) — It’s been nearly a month since the Virginia interstate pileup on I-95 that left thousands of people trapped on the highway for more than 24 hours after a major snowstorm hit the area.

The 50-mile closure left many motorists without food, water or access to fuel.

State officials said at the time that local authorities didn’t request help from the state’s National Guard, even though the snow was in the forecast. But in an email, exclusively obtained by NewsNation, a local county official says he did request for the National Guard’s help.

Stafford County Administrator Frederick Presley said he begged state officials for help to respond to the motorists who were stuck on the snow and ice-covered highway.

In the email, Presley wrote, “Without 100% action, to include the National Guard if necessary, our emergency personnel can’t get to the people that need our assistance. These people have been stranded all day.” Presley added that people needed help “immediately.”

The problems began the morning of Jan. 3 when a truck jackknifed on I-95, triggering a chain reaction as other vehicles lost control, state police said. Eventually, lanes in both directions became blocked across a 40-mile stretch of the highway between Richmond and the nation’s capital at a time when snow was falling around 2 inches an hour.

State officials including then-Gov. Ralph Northam and the Emergency Management Department told NewsNation repeatedly that no local authorities asked for the National Guard’s help. NewsNation’s Evan Lambert spoke with State Emergency Management Spokeswoman Lauren Opett about the situation the next day.

“As of early this morning, we only had — I don’t even believe we had any requests overnight,” Opett said. “If we had one, it may have been one. But it wasn’t for anything related to the National Guard or any of those services.”

The Virginia Department of Emergency Management said Monday that the email wasn’t considered an official request because it didn’t go through an official request form. It was also sent just after midnight after the disaster occurred.

Northam defended his decision not to activate the Virginia National Guard or declare a state of emergency.

In an interview about the incident, he said he opted not to request National Guard help because the issue facing state crews was not a lack of manpower but the difficulty of getting workers and equipment through the snow and ice to where they needed to be. He said that effort was complicated by the disabled vehicles, freezing temperatures and ice.

Marcie Parker, a state Department of Transportation engineer, said the affected section of the interstate was not pretreated because heavy rain preceded the snow, which fell at times as fast as 2 inches an hour.

Among those trapped in the incident was Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who said he was trapped in his car for more than 21 hours.