INDIANAPOLIS — With Lucas Oil Stadium roughly 60% full for the Indianapolis Colts’ final game of the 2024 NFL season, Justin Anderson and friends bailed early — as the game headed for overtime — in order to start their two-hour drive home to Fort Wayne.
”We had to beat the snow,” Anderson said. “Jack frost and his guys. Had to beat ‘em out but it happens to the best.”
Anderson was among the hundreds of Colts fans who had decided they had seen enough of the non-playoff bound team. Even the lure of a thrilling overtime win in a meaningless game wasn’t enough to keep them in their seats.
”We gotta get out of here,” said Lilly Jaegar. “We tried to beat the traffic, and that’s what we’re doing. This was before we planned any of this snow coming. We bought the tickets. Got some good seats. Then decided the day that we’re still gonna come. Now we’re tracking some snow.”
During the height of the afternoon snowfall, when accumulations were totaling up to two inches an hour, snowblowers were out on downtown sidewalks, shovelers hit church walkways on West Morris Street and a DPW truck — one of 70 that had been on city streets since Saturday night — put the blade to the pavement, having tossed salt overnight.
Police and tow trucks responded to dozens of accidents and slide offs throughout the metro area and surrounding counties where slippery conditions gave no quarter to drivers hitting the straight too fast coming off the curve and ending up backward down the embankment as motorists’ memories of snowy conditions driving faded over the last three years since central Indiana had its last significant snowfall.
“Its gross,” said Jaeger, anticipating the slow trek back to Allen County in the fading daylight. “I hate the snow, and its profusely coming so we gotta get home and get out of this.”
