IF THIS state’s highway department is ever looking for a theme song, it could do worse than “Stormy Weather,” which would be a perfect fit for its shameful performance during the ice storm that hit the state early in March, and immobilized much of northern and northeastern Arkansas.

We’d recommend Lena Horne’s rendition-“Stormy weather, just can’t get my poor self together . . .” That verse would seem to sum up the department’s inept response to that crippling storm-and its lack of preparation for it. As if it were some big surprise that ice storms hit Arkansas on slippery occasion and are likely to cause big problems, especially for traffic.

What a spectacle: Icebound drivers could turn on their radios or just look across the state line and realize that, if only they could have made it to Missouri, they would have found safe, well-maintained highways that had been cleared of ice and snow, and were wide open to traffic. As they should have been in a safety-conscious and self-respecting state. They call Missouri the Show-Me state, and, boy, did its how up Arkansas in March.

While traffic flowed smoothly just a few miles away in Missouri, a state north of here at that, and so that much closer to the country’s snow belt, many of the poor souls stranded in Arkansas were left to shiver in their cars all night long.

Folks in Arkansas and innocent visitors who were just passing through the affected stretches of Interstate 40 or 55 had to tough it out. Many of them were reduced to spending the night trying to sleep in their immobilized vehicles. It was an impressive rebuke to Arkansas,and especially to those responsible for our highways. We can’t remember being so embarrassed.

Various legislators and even our usually even-tempered governor sounded as if they’d finally had it with the state highway department’s making excuses instead of progress when it comes to being prepared for disastrous weather, like that crippling ice storm.

What a contrast with the state’s excellent tornado-warning system Sunday afternoon and evening, when up-to-the-minute information about the approaching tornado was available everywhere as sirens sounded and people took shelter. Without that system and the people who run it, even more lives might have been lost. Well done, ladies and gentlemen.

As for the state’s highway department, it’s now done what any government agency that has screwed up royally does: hire a new staffer, or at least consultant. So, a little late but better than never, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department asked our good (and efficient) neighbors in Missouri for some advice. As it has done in the past.

Now, acting on that good advice, the department has hired a special weather forecaster to warn it when a storm is bearing down on us in Arkansas. So next time the department might have its act together at last. At least here’s hoping, and demanding, that it does.

Editorial, Pages 14 on 04/29/2014