Early spring snowfall created calamity in some Franklin County towns Monday, including a pair of unrelated rollover accidents in close proximity in Ashfield.
Police Chief Beth Bezio said she and Officer Raymond Grasso responded to a 3:37 p.m. call of a Chevrolet Traverse rollover on Ashfield Mountain Road, only for a Ford Explorer to meet the same fate mere yards away roughly 15 minutes later. Bezio said no one was transported to hospitals and Hampshire Towing removed both disabled vehicles from the scene.
Bezio said the accidents were the result of the slick roads caused by the heavy snowfall.
“It was building up faster than they could get the plows out,” she said Tuesday, adding that the accidents are under investigation.
Leverett Police Chief Scott Minckler said three people were taken to Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton with minor injuries after the operator of a Nissan failed to properly negotiate a corner turn on Shutesbury Road near the Shutesbury town line and slammed head-on into a Subaru.
“The road was snow-covered at the time,” Minckler said, adding that Officer William Kimball responded to the scene, as did Amherst Ambulance Services, the Leverett Fire Department and Shutesday police and fire departments. The call, Minckler said, came in at 4:21 p.m.
Minckler said the names of the accident victims are not being released.
But snowfall did not equate to vehicle accidents for all area towns and cities, as Greenfield Police Chief Robert Haigh Jr. said the Department of Public Works kept the roads clear and most people have decided to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Montague emergency dispatcher Steve Chase said he was not aware of any weather-related crashes in his town, only some vehicles that got stuck in snow and required towing. Trooper William Christie of the Massachusetts State Police barracks in Athol said the roads were quiet Monday night and the Highway Division of the state Department of Transportation did a wonderful job keeping roads cleared.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.