KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A combination of multiple snow storms stacked on top of extreme low temperatures is creating “extraordinary numbers” of calls for help to AAA.
For AAA service driver Elvis King, it started at 6:30 this morning.
“There were calls already waiting,” King said. “An awful lot of people on the way to work on the side of the highway, on the side of the streets.”
“We've been running somewhere in the neighborhood of 600-700 emergency road service calls in the Kansas City area each of the last several days,” said AAA vice president Wayne Young. “We imagine that number to go up tomorrow as the temperatures drop.”
AAA officials say the spike in Kansas City calls began December 23rd with an average of 519 calls per day since.
That’s more than triple what officials say is the approximately 150 calls for help the roadside assistance company gets on a normal winter day.
“Maybe the calls wouldn't be so bad if they were spaced out, but you get a lot of calls in the main hours of eight to ten and four to six,” King said.
Young said dead batteries made-up about a third of the calls for help with the majority of calls for help going to extrications.
“Still doing a few tows, naturally, then your normal mix of frozen doors and frozen locks and flat tires and that sort of thing,” Young said.
Due to the high number of calls, AAA officials say wait times today averaged about an hour-and-a-half.
