St. Joseph County police urge caution on slick roads

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. -- After some parts of our area saw rainfall earlier Tuesday, we anticipate seeing more here tonight. With that, can come slick roadways, making a headache for drivers.

Days like these might be great for the plants and the grass, but the rain creates potentially unsafe road conditions as well

"Six inches of water that's slowly moving can knock a human down, 12 inches can make a car move, so it's very important, when you're going down a roadway if you see water that's crossing it, turn around and don't drown. That's what we want people to be aware of because if you're stuck in a vehicle, you're going to be stuck out there, you're going to put yourself in danger, plus the police or anyone that's responding to rescue you, you're going to put them in danger, and we don't want that,” said St. Joseph County Sergeant Jason Dziubinski.

According to the US Department of Transportation, 75 percent of weather-related crashes happen on wet pavement, with nearly 50 percent during rainfall. Statistics like those are what give Sergeant Dziubinski concern for the areas with the recent precipitation, and more rain we may see tonight. He's urging drivers to be cognizant of the fact your speed on dry roads should not be the same as your speed when the roads are slick and wet, especially since you might have to make a sudden stop.

"The ground is so saturated that the water has nowhere to go, so we're looking for a lot of flooding on the roadways, as well as trees that will be coming down as a result of that because it might not be windy but the trees, their roots get weak because of the saturation of the soil, and then that causes them to fall over so we've had a few instances where we've had some cars crash into some trees that were down across the roadways,” said Sgt. Dziubinski.

One area in the county in particular where people need to use caution is the US 20 bypass, which tends to flood in the low-lying areas.