Patchwork system guides Indiana emergencies

FORT WAYNE -- A blizzard might not recognize county boundaries, but Indiana's system for declaring snow emergencies does.\nWith no state law to set a standard, Indiana's 92 counties have adopted a patchwork acof formal and informal rules for declaring and enforcing snow emergencies.\nAs a result, a motorist might pass through one county with a snow emergency, another without one and a third with something called a Level 1, 2 or 3 emergency without noticing any difference in the weather or road conditions, the Journal-Gazette reported Sunday.\nThe same driver might be ticketed or see his car towed for defying an emergency order, although most officials say that provision is rarely used.\n"It goes from county to county, so you just don't know. You cross the county line, you don't know what you're getting into," said Whitley County Sheriff Michael Schrader. "It's confusing for a lot of people."\nSome counties have only one level of emergency, whereas others use numbered or color-coded systems to distinguish among varying degrees of crisis.\nOfficials in counties with tiered systems say their systems are more flexible. Lower levels of emergency generally are advisory, whereas upper levels prohibit travel to some degree.\nNoble County Commissioner J. Hal Stump said his county's three-tiered system gives officials the ability to warn motorists to use caution without closing local highways.\n"Just to call a snow emergency, people are going to be calling me saying, 'Do I dare to work?'" he said.\nLevel 1 means people are asked not to use the roads unless they need to. If conditions worsen and roads cannot be cleared, the county moves to Level 3.\nLocal officials must balance the risk to public safety with the needs of the economy and concerns over liability. Most county policies require people to check with their employers before going to work.\nIn Huntington County, officials rarely declare a snow emergency.\nSheriff Kent Farthing said the county has not done so in his two years in office.\n"When you start that, people who work want to use that as an excuse not to go to work," he said.\nKosciusko County Sheriff Aaron Rovenstine said his county has not officially declared a snow emergency since the late 1970s or early 1980s, although a rookie deputy made an unofficial declaration over the radio during a storm in 1999.\nIn most counties, the decision to declare a snow emergency rests with one or more of the county commissioners. Most county commissioners say they base their decision on information provided by the sheriff's and highway departments and the emergency management agency.