Extreme cold and ice didn’t stop the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo. As temperatures plummeted and sleet fell, the schedule of events galloped on.
Roads near the Will Rogers Memorial Center were icy over the weekend, but city crews sanded streets around the complex to help keep traffic moving as officials urged essential travel.
City, state and police officials asked residents to remain off the roads Monday and Tuesday as ice from Winter Storm Fern continues to coat North Texas. Layers of frozen sleet and ice remained on many major thoroughfares and highways, which were routinely plowed by Texas Department of Transportation crews during overnight hours.
Matt Brockman, communications director for the stock show, said organizers plan year-round for the 23-day event — including for inclement weather.
“It’s not unusual to experience this in January and February, so we were prepared,” he said Monday morning. “The only places that saw increased attendance were grocery stores. There were fewer people in the pews at church, there were fewer people in the restaurants that were open. … It’s no surprise there were fewer spectators going to come through the gates.”
For the Junior League of Fort Worth, members showed up to sell programs during the rodeo as they have done since 1957, said DaNae Couch, one of the chairs of the rodeo program sales committee for the Junior League.
“If the rodeo is operating, we are in the stands and on the pavilion selling the rodeo programs,” said Couch.
Members of the rodeo program sales committee of the Junior League of Fort Worth take a photo in the frigid weather on Jan. 23. (Courtesy photo | DaNae Couch) The Junior League receives $2 of each $5 program sold. The funds they raise benefit the local charities and organizations supported by the Junior League, Couch said.
“Friday night was really good,” she said. “As the storm progressed over the weekend, you saw the attendance numbers dropping.”
Couch said the turnout from the Junior League was also good.
“The people that attend these events are the toughest of the tough, the folks interested in pro rodeo,” she said. “So those that could safely get there, turned out. I was proud of them.”
The stock show continued Monday with swine and heifer showings, a youth art workshop and timed roping classes and a timed event challenge. More events are scheduled this week.
Icy roads an issue
Traffic was light on Interstate 35W Monday as a scattering of tractor-trailers, four-wheel drive trucks and sports utility vehicles were mostly seen on the highway. TxDOT cameras on highways and interstates in the Fort Worth district showed many roads with light vehicular traffic remained mostly ice-covered on Monday. Some melting occurred Monday afternoon but those areas will refreeze for Tuesday morning.
A new daily record was set Jan. 25 when nearly an inch of snow was recorded at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, surpassing a 1949 record of 0.1 inches, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Ice will remain an issue as Fort Worth emerges from the 80-hour deep freeze that saw temperatures drop to below 10 degrees with wind chills as low as -5 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. Ice that melts will refreeze on cold nights.
Fort Worth police were still encouraging only essential travel on Monday. They urged motorists who must travel to check their vehicles for proper fuel, working lights and tire pressure before heading out.
So far, city crews treated more than 2,252 locations — including police facilities, MedStar operations and local hospitals — with brine or sand or removed ice and debris from roadways. About 1,518 Fort Worth locations were sanded as the city used more than 1,300 cubic yards of a sand-salt mixture, officials said.
Routes used by Trinity Metro to deliver residents to warming centers were also treated. However, the amount of ice on the road hampered bus operations, which stopped Saturday.
Transit operations affected
Extreme cold and roadway conditions continued to affect transit operations, including bus and rideshare services on Monday. However, TEXRail and Trinity Railway Express passenger trains returned to a normal schedule. On-Demand paratransit was limited to life-sustaining service on Monday.
“Trinity Metro leadership and operations teams continue to assess conditions across the system as work progresses toward the safe restoration of additional services,” Ted Zimmerman, vice president of marketing and communications, said in a statement.
Forecast, reopenings planned
The National Weather Service said patchy freezing fog is forecast before 7 a.m. Tuesday. Later in the day, the temperature is expected to exceed freezing for the first time since Friday evening. A high of 40 degrees will aid in melting ice, but nightly temperatures in the 20s means motorists face the risk of black ice as freezing will continue nightly through the week.
Shawna Russell Jones, TxDOT communications director for northwest Texas, said Monday that crews were working on day six of 24-hour winter weather operations across nine counties.
“Crews continue working around the clock on state-maintained roadways to keep conditions as safe and ‘passable’ as possible, and many local entities are doing the same on locally maintained roadways and thoroughfares,” she said in an email.
People are urged to stay home on Tuesday as conditions are expected to improve.
Cars travel down the Interstate 35W frontage road north of Allen Avenue on Monday afternoon. Melted ice was expected to refreeze for Tuesday morning. (Eric E. Garcia | Fort Worth Report) “Even with the sun shining now, the forecast calls for (only) one hour today at 31 degrees before temps fall again into the upper teens overnight,” she said Monday. “Any remaining moisture during these lower, sustained temps is likely to refreeze again, creating cause for continued adverse conditions and possibly, black ice.”
Fort Worth City Hall is expected to open at 10 a.m. Tuesday with City Council meetings starting at noon with a work session. The A.D. Marshall Public Courts Building will open at noon Tuesday.
The city plans no residential garbage collections on Tuesday, Jan. 27. Regular schedules for garbage and recycling collections will resume Wednesday, Jan. 28. Residents who have collections on Monday and Tuesday will be allowed to put out extra bags for collection on Feb. 2-3.
Materials company sales boom
Bobby Spence, commercial retail manager for Silver Creek Materials, said the 42-year-old Fort Worth family business had busy times before the storm hit as cities, entities and individuals stocked up on materials to aid with the cold and ice.
“We did have a lot of customers stocking up on sand, feed gravel and also rock in case there’s pipe damage to dig it out and patch it up,” he said.
The company has a loader, available 24 hours a day for entities or individuals to restock materials as needed. In the last week, about 20,000 to 30,000 yards of products were distributed, Spence said. He declined to provide sales estimates.
The company, which started as a sand and gravel quarry in 1983, has grown into a large-scale operation that includes mining, landscaping and recycling solutions on its 600 acres at 2251 Silver Creek Road.
Spence said the company excavates most materials, including sand and rock and has an on-site rock crusher for recycled concrete.
“Mulches are really big this time of year as well because people are putting it down on their plants to insulate their plants,” he said.
He added that 4 to 6 inches of mulch will help plants revive in the spring.
Stock show outings
Spence said the weather didn’t stop his fun at the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo.
“We made it down to the rodeo Friday and Saturday night,” Spence said. “There was no traffic.”
Brockman said tracks in the ice Monday indicated exhibitors are still active at the stock show.
“We’re very fortunate to have the city of Fort Worth’s public works and transportation department, which is Johnny-on-the-spot,” he said. “Then you take the Will Rogers Memorial Center and Dickies Arena and what they do, they’re also attentive to the situation and as prompt as they can be to move forward.”
Brockman said residents will be eager to get out of their homes to see the stock show, which continues to Feb. 7.
“There’s going to be some pent-up demand for stock show fun,” he said. “We’ve still got 12 more days for that pent-up demand.”
Eric E. Garcia is senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org.
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.
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