Tim Kaine reaches Capitol after being stranded on I-95 for nearly 27 hours

After nearly 27 hours stuck in snow and ice-induced gridlock on I-95, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) finally reached the U.S. Capitol Tuesday afternoon.

Kaine left his home in Richmond, Va., at 1 p.m. on Monday and reached Washington, D.C., for what is normally a two-hour commute at 4:20 p.m. on Tuesday.

Winter weather hit the East Coast on Monday morning and backed up hundreds of vehicles on the interstate in the D.C. Metro area, where highways became covered with ice overnight.

Kaine was among the hundreds of exasperated drivers stuck in the traffic snarl. As he finally exited his vehicle upon arriving at the Capitol, Kaine said “They have to figure out what happened” in a video shared by CBS News correspondent Alan He on Twitter.

“Was it a weather forecasting issue? Was it an inadequate pre-treatment of roads?” he asked.

The moment when Tim Kaine made it back to the Capitol pic.twitter.com/gVdbJeSW6Z

— Alan He (@alanhe) January 4, 2022

Trapped in the freezing cold and relying just on his car for warmth, Kaine entered “survival mode,” he told CNN Tuesday afternoon.

“At some point it switched from a miserable travel day into kind of a survival mode day for me,” he said in a phone call. “And, you know, the roads are incredibly slick, and my car is sliding around, and I don’t have food or drink in my car, so I was more focused on, ‘OK, how do I safely get out of this mess?'”

Kaine tweeted throughout his ordeal: updating his followers about the backups, offering advice to others stuck in the traffic and even tweeting about a family that brought him an orange so he didn’t go hungry.

Upon arriving at the Capitol, he quickly got to work, gaggling with reporters and then joining a voting rights meeting with colleagues. 

“Ok after 27 hours on the road from Richmond to DC, very happy to be back in the Capitol and working on voting rights legislation this afternoon,” he tweeted.

Ok after 27 hours on the road from Richmond to DC, very happy to be back in the Capitol and working on voting rights legislation this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/6XE45ZQUvq

— Tim Kaine (@timkaine) January 4, 2022

Over Monday night and into Tuesday, the Virginia police responded to about 1,000 accidents and disabled vehicles on I-95, which still remains partly closed at some exits in the Fredericksburg area.

The Virginia Department of Transportation tweeted Tuesday afternoon that they were “making significant headway to remove disabled vehicles, & tractor trailers from I-95 then plow trains will come through to remove snow and ice.”