Officials in the Missouri Department of Transportation admitted their crews didn’t pretreat roads before a quick burst of snowfall blanketed the St. Louis region and led to numerous crashes and traffic gridlock on Monday afternoon.

The fast-moving system caused major backups on Missouri interstates that lasted hours in some areas.

MoDOT officials said they expected the snow to arrive in late afternoon. Instead, the first bands of snow began falling shortly before noon.

"This storm came in several hours sooner than expected… Our expectation was this was coming in at 4 o’clock this afternoon," MoDOT St. Louis District Maintenance Engineer Bob Becker said during a Monday news conference. "We didn't get out there. If we would have known it was going to come in at noon, we would have ‘em out

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