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Icy roads spelled early morning chaos in Blount County on Tuesday as traffic slowed and accidents abounded.

Contrary to forecasts from the National Weather Service, temperatures continued to drop after daybreak, causing rain to freeze on the roads.

“It started off as nothing but a light rain when I came in at 6 a.m. this morning,” Highway Superintendent Bill Dunlap said. “It was just a little drizzle, nothing slick. There was no frozen precipitation ... but the ground was so cold, it started to freeze when it hit.

“The first call we got was about 6:50 a.m. Then the calls really started. We’ve got all the trucks out responding to emergencies and buses that are hung up, trying to get the kids off of buses and into school. It’s everywhere except the south end of the county, really.”

There were four Blount County school buses that slid off the roads and became stuck but no students were injured, Director of Schools Alvin Hord said.

“We had many kids absent today, but they will be excused and it will not be counted against them,” he said. “We’ve had a rough morning, but the teachers and parents and bus drivers, everybody concerned, have all done well. (The amount of ice) was unexpected from what our reports were earlier this morning. It was supposed to be warmer, but it did not turn out to be. Our decision (whether to cancel school) has to be made by 5:30 a.m. every morning. At that point, it looked like we were going to have some amount of freezing rain, but it was going to get warmer. That didn’t happen.”

Hord said that he made the decision to allow school to continue to operate on a normal schedule based on the best information he had at the time.

“That’s always a risk you take,” Hord said. “You make a decision based on the best information you have and what you see and what people are telling you. That can be difficult at 5:30 a.m. in the morning.”

Blount County Schools will remain on a regular session today to avoid sending students home in the cold and risk parents not being able to meet them, Hord said.

“We’re going to try to manage and get through the day unless something changes,” he said.

By 10:40 a.m., the temperature had risen enough for the roads to begin thawing, Dunlap said.

“They are beginning to slush,” he said. “That’s good. As the day moves on, the temperature will ease on up and everything will turn back to moisture.”