Roadways throughout Kidder Township were snarled with traffic and downed power lines due to Friday’s snowstorm.

The storm dropped 6 to 12 inches in parts of both Kidder and Penn Forest townships.

The main road that ties the two towns together — Route 903 — was shut down from Route 115 in Monroe County to Route 534 in Albrightsville. Accidents, downed trees and wires caused power outages and major headaches.

“We couldn’t keep up with the snow,” said Penn Forest Chairman Warren Reiner. “Our trucks would get stuck, then our contractor’s trucks would get stuck. It was a nightmare.”

Reiner said that the township was in contact with the state police to monitor the conditions throughout the storm.

The problems in both townships were made worse by tractor-trailers that don’t normally use the main roads through the townships, but were rerouted onto Routes 940, 115 and 903 by GPS to avoid the shutdown on Routes 80 and 476.

In addition, travelers from outside the area relied on their GPS to reroute them as well. One road that saw a huge increase in traffic was Moseywood Road and South Lake Drive in Kidder Township.

Unfortunately for many who were sent that way by the GPS, a Lake Harmony firetruck that was being used to cut trees to keep them off power lines slid into a ditch on South Lake Drive, blocking the road for several hours.

Director of Resort Operations for Split Rock Resort Bob Sassani opened up the public areas of Split Rock lodge to those stuck on the road giving them a place to warm up and use the restrooms.

“We were already very busy with reservations for the weekend, and surprisingly very few guests did not show up,” Sassani said. “But we did what we could to accommodate some local residents that were without power by giving reduced room rates while we had some rooms available and we also opened up the fitness center and water park so that they could use the showers and the public areas so they could keep warm.”

As of Tuesday afternoon there were only three homes without power in Penn Forest Township and no outages reported in Kidder Township.