Dallas weather: Flying ice damages cars as north Texas melts

DALLAS – If you’ve been out on icy roads this week, you’ve no doubt seen some very slippery spots.

It’s dangerous enough. But protecting yourself and your car from unpredictable flying ice is almost impossible.

Michael Frey says that while driving on Wednesday, a huge piece of ice hit him and damaged the windshield of his truck.

“It looks like the roof of the car is coming off of it, but I knew it was ice,” he said. “I was driving north on 635 about a mile south of exit 80 east.”

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Sister Freya was in the passenger seat. They were in Dallas on their way home to Forney.

Frey himself is an experienced winter-weather driver, having worked at a ski resort in New Mexico for nearly a decade. The incident is not what he could have predicted.

“I saw it come off in one piece. He flew almost out of my field of vision. I would say 40-50 feet in the air is pretty high,” he said. “I could see him flying like a kite. Then he seemed to make a sharp turn and just took off towards my truck. I didn’t have time to hit the brakes, swerve or anything.”

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What happened to Frey was not an isolated incident. Similar situations were also at many other drivers.

Tylissa Wright is still recovering from the same incident that damaged her windshield Friday morning on the North Dallas toll road. She was driving to work in Plano. After the impact, she managed to get out safely.

“Suddenly, I saw a large piece of ice flying in the air. He pulled away from another car, which I believe, and just hit me. Hit my windshield and broke it,” she recalls. “At that moment, I was just trying to get off the road. This was my main goal. I guess I was driving and turning my head, trying to look out of the various cracks, trying to safely get off the road and get to a place where I could just stop.”

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Frey caught the attention of the driver, whose car was blown off the ice, and hit him. She stopped when he did.

Wright is not sure where the piece that hit her came from.

In any case, both consider themselves lucky that no one was hurt.