HARRISBURG -- It was noon Wednesday, and state Rep. Jennifer Mann, D-Lehigh, was fighting her way along icy, snowy Interstate 78, headed from the closed state Capitol back to her home in Allentown.

"I intentionally waited a couple hours before leaving the Capitol to give [state employees] a chance to get a jump on clearing the road,'' she said yesterday.

It didn't work. She ended up stopped -- for six cold, miserable hours -- behind a tractor trailer about a mile shy of Exit 35, or 20 miles short of her exit for Allentown. She turned off her engine for a while to keep from using all her gasoline, and she was chilled and worried by late afternoon, as temperatures dropped and the wind increased.

"Finally, I said, enough is enough,'' she recounted. "I pulled my SUV over to the shoulder of the road, which was full of ice and snow, and managed to get about a mile to the next exit, where the ramp was clear. So were the side roads. I don't know who cleared them. I finally got to Route 22, which runs parallel to I-78, and that took me back to Allentown. I was one of the lucky ones. It only took me 8¹/₂ hours [to go 80 miles] to get to Allentown.

"If I hadn't mustered up the courage to ride the shoulder, it would have been a few more hours, at least, before I got home,'' she said. Indeed, hundreds of motorists were stranded on the highway for more than 24 hours Wednesday and Thursday before all were finally freed yesterday morning.

Many people in her district "are very upset,'' she said.

Bad news for PennDOT crews, which got a late start Wednesday on removing the ice and snow -- Ms. Mann sits on the House Transportation Committee and she wants answers.