UPDATED at 3:15 p.m. Thursday with more information about a fatal crash.

ST. LOUIS • MoDOT's top engineer in St. Louis defended the decision not to pretreat interstate highways with salt brine before a relatively light snowfall paralyzed local highways this morning.

"I think right now it wouldn't have made any difference," said Ed Hassinger, the Missouri Department of Transportation's district engineer in St. Louis. "We'll just have to look at the timing. I know people are frustrated. Nobody is more frustrated than we are."

Drivers were fuming that a moderate snow before morning rush hour led to a slow, slippery commute.

Black ice is the culprit for the hundreds of wrecks and traffic tie-ups, road crews say.

One crash on Interstate 55 at U.S. Highway 61 in Jefferson County just before 7 a.m. left a man dead and a woman seriously injured, the Missouri Highway Patrol said.

Newton Aldridge, 41, of Bloomsdale, Mo., lost control of the Pontiac Grand Am he was driving northbound on I-55 and crashed into the guard rail, the Highway Patrol said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Christine Aldridge, 30, a passenger in the car, was taken to Jefferson Regional Medical Center with serious injuries, the Highway Patrol said.

According to the Highway Patrol report, Newton Aldridge was wearing a seatbelt; Christine Aldridge was not.

By the morning rush hour, even though the snow amounted to only about an inch or two, major crashes and impassable conditions were affecting just about every major interstate in the area.

"It's been pandemonium," said Jim Ferrick, 42, a commuter from Ladue.

Ferrick, a lawyer who works in downtown St. Louis, said his nanny was an hour late because of the road conditions. School was called off for one of his children, but another child was late to school. His wife is also a lawyer downtown.

"Everybody's working today but we're all late," Ferrick said as he made a quick stop for gasoline at Price and Clayton roads.

Missouri Department of Transportation crews began arriving to work at midnight Wednesday and were putting down salt after snow began to fall between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., Hassinger said.

The crews applied rock salt that had been moistened with water to all of the interstate highways in the Missouri half of the region, Hassinger said. When temperatures began to drop, crews prepared to hit the roads a second time ‑ this time with a mix of salt, beet juice and calcium chloride.

"Traffic hit at the time we needed to be out there for the next round," Hassinger said. "We just couldn't get there."

MoDOT officials reported this morning that pavement was wet and turned into black ice when temperatures began to plummet.

Illinois crews began working at 1:40 a.m. Thursday and pretreated bridges and overpasses with salt brine, said Joseph Monroe, District 8 operations engineer for the Illinois Department of Transportation.

COMMUTER HORROR STORIES

Segments of Highway 40 (Interstate 64) and Interstate 44 were closed for part of the commutes because of ice and accidents.

Commuter horror stories were everywhere. Some people turned to the Internet to blow off steam. And radio call-in shows were jammed with calls from motorists stuck in traffic.

Jason Merrill, who works at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, was in his car, creeping along Page Avenue near Interstate 170 at 9:30 a.m., more than 90 minutes after he left home in St. Charles County. But he picked Page because I-70 wasn't moving at all.

"I'm beyond angry," he told the Post-Dispatch. "This is probably the worst traffic experience I've had. To know so little precipitation fell from the sky and that the roads are this bad..."

Dozens of school districts called off classes. Among the largest districts to cancel today are the Fort Zumwalt and Francis Howell districts in St. Charles County.

Kacey Ruckstaetter, 37, of Creve Coeur, said the traffic made her late dropping off her two kids at two schools. As she was getting gas for her minivan in Clayton just before 10 a.m., Ruckstaetter said: "I debated just going home, but we're close enough now."

Josh Biggs, 33, said it took four hours for him to drive from his home in O'Fallon, Ill., to Monsanto Co.'s headquarters in Creve Coure, where he works, usually a 45-minute commute. It took him an hour and a half just to reach the Poplar Street Bridge on I-55.

"That's when I figured I would probably be in the car most of the day," he said.

He spent about as much time driving to and from work today as he spent in the office, he said. The company encouraged most people to go home about 3 p.m. so they could get home before the sun set.

Jody Lumsden, 28, of Glen Carbon, said she left home about 8 a.m. and thought that would be enough time to get to her office at Manchester Road and I-270 in Des Peres. She normally takes I-270 west to get to work. She only got about five miles.

"I gave up and commuted back home," she said. "There were a lot of people who were committed, though."

The only close call she had was when her car fishtailed on an exit ramp. She said she was driving carefully and the cars around her were giving her enough room.

"I was a grandma" behind the wheel, she said.

CRASHES THROUGHOUT AREA

Numerous crashes were reported throughout the metro area as cars and trucks spun out or ran off the roads. Interstates were partly to mostly covered by snow. Snow bursts were making it hard for motorists to see.

The Missouri Highway Patrol said most of those crashes had only minor injuries.

The patrol was swamped with calls. At 4 a.m., when not many cars were on the road, the patrol got about 80 calls reporting crashes. By 9 a.m., more than 240 calls had come in across the Troop C's coverage area of 11 counties, said Cpl. Jeff Wilson, a patrol spokesman. The patrol was left playing catch-up to try to get to all of those crashes.

The Illinois State Police said the weather contributed to numerous crashes, most involving cars sliding off the roads but also rollover crashes.

People were injured in three crashes by 9:30 a.m.: On Illinois 255 at New Poag Road; at I-55 at I-270 in the Troy area; and Freeburg New Douglas Road at Kraft Road, west of Freeburg.

One hot spot for crashes in St. Louis County was Highway 40 near Interstate 270. Another was along Interstate 44, between Arsenal Street and Jamieson Avenue. Two multi-vehicle pileups were reported there, one in the westbound lanes and one in the eastbound lanes.

Westbound Interstate 70, west of Union Boulevard, was shut down about 6 a.m. because of a crash. Other crashes were blocking lanes of westbound Highway 40 (Interstate 64) near Clayton Road, I-64 near Mason Road and I-64 west of Timberlake Manor Drive; Tesson Ferry at Mattis Road, and in the Arnold area southbound I-55 near Richardson Road; and northbound Interstate 55 at Potomac Road.

Police said some drivers were reporting that westbound I-44 at Arsenal Street was like a sheet of ice at about 7 a.m. It was shut down on and off throughout the morning.

WEATHER OUTLOOK

It was about 20 degrees by 6 a.m., but the wind chill was making it feel more like 10. The moderate snowfall tapered off by late morning, and forecasters said flurries are possible throughout the day. Accumulation could be anywhere from 1 to 3 inches today. A winter advisory is in effect until 6 p.m.

Blowing and drifting snow should make for some hazardous driving conditions through the afternoon hours.

By 10 a.m., the snow had scaled back to a few flakes, and no area across the St. Louis region was reporting more than two inches of accumulation.

Tonight's low temperature overnight should be in the teens. Friday's high could top out at 27. Forecasters say we'll get above the freezing mark on Saturday.