Owners Search For Cars Abandoned On Outer Drive
Updated 02/03/11 - 11 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Lake Shore Drive is back open, but some people who were stuck for hours have yet to be reunited with their cars.
A total of 519 cars were relocated to various city lots, where they were towed by city vehicles after being abandoned on Lake Shore Drive Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. By Thursday evening, only about 150 vehicles remained to be claimed, officials said.
One of the lots at Soldier Field received 85 cars, and many owners were frustrated as they had difficulty finding their vehicles.
Mayor Daley's chief of staff, Raymond Orozco, acknowledged that there were some problems informing motorists where cars had been relocated early on, but said that officials are doing what they can to help drivers find their cars.
"It was very fluid this morning," Orozco said. "We have staff on scene with wireless PDA's so we're getting the up-to-date information."
The city also was providing two gallons of free gasoline to motorists whose vehicles ran out of gas on Lake Shore Drive and providing jump starts to cars with dead batteries.
Officials have estimated that about 600 to 900 cars were stranded on the Drive in the midst of the snowstorm. Jordan Stein's car was one of them.
"Because of the snow drift, you can tell that my side of the car is coming up to basically right around here," Stein said as he stood in a parking lot in Soldier Field on Thursday.
Stein sat in his car for nearly ten hours before he was rescued.
"There was nowhere to go. We were at a standstill. Cars were dead," Stein said. "We ended up probably around 3:30, a fireman came to our door. We jumped a median and got in an ambulance."
Mayor Richard M. Daley has defended his top aides' handling of the crisis on Lake Shore Drive, when hundreds of motorists became stranded in the snow Tuesday evening, some of them for as long as 12 hours.
The mayor and other top city officials have defended the decision to keep Lake Shore Drive open at the beginning of the blizzard, only closing the Drive after a series of accidents left traffic at a complete standstill Tuesday evening.
"There was huge drifts there," Daley said. "Once you had the accidents, everybody stopped."
Asked why it took more than a day to pull all of the stranded vehicles off of Lake Shore Drive, Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne said city crews did the best they could under extreme circumstances.
"We brought in 84 tow trucks the night of the incident on the Drive and those tow trucks worked constantly through yesterday and this morning ... so we could get the Drive open," Byrne said Thursday. "Every one of the cars was buried."
Daley pointed out that snow drifts as high as three to four feet swamped the cars on Lake Shore Drive in heavy snow once traffic came to a standstill..
Stein's car started up when he retrieved it Thursday in a Soldier Field parking lot, where city officials had towed it.
"It's running and it's here," he said. "That's all I care about."
Doug Ericson couldn't find his car. He said that was even more frustrating than being stuck on the Outer Drive for 12 hours.
"My car is not on the Web site list, and we're going from lot to lot, and it's pretty impossible," Ericson said.
June Harris' Cadillac didn't start. The engine was covered in snow.
After two different jump attempts, Harris was off to buy a new battery.
Another man came to pick up his wife's car. She was stranded for 13 hours, her husband says she is still shaken by her ordeal.
"She's not going to be out in any snowstorms anytime soon," the man said. "I guarantee it."
The car started with a little help from the man's cabbie, Pervez Akhtar, who is prone to helping out. On Tuesday night, he may well have saved a man's life.
"He was almost dying. He was laying down on the street," Akhtar said.
Harris came back to soldier field with a new battery, and despite the snow-packed engine, the car started right up. Harris thinks he knows why.
"It's a real Cadillac," he said.
Owners of vehicles towed off of Lake Shore Drive can go to www.cityofchicago.org and click on "Alerts" at near the top of the page to access a list showing where more than 500 of those vehicles were taken.
People claiming their vehicles need only bring their address and a description of the vehicle. Motorists should include the make, model and color of the car and have their keys with them.
No tickets or towing charges will be issued.
