December 24, 2009
By Oren Dorell
USA Today
A massive winter storm threatened to spoil Christmas travel plans for much of the nation with road closures forecast for highways in the Plains, hundreds of canceled flights in Chicago and Minneapolis and flash-flood warnings in the Southeast.
Photo: A stretch of Interstate 70 in Kansas was snowpacked by mid-afternoont. The state Department of Transportation warned that travel would be almost impossible in northeast Kansas by Thursday afternoon. (By Steven Hausler, AP)
The "big, big storm" is forecast to blanket Kansas, northern Colorado, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri with up to 2 feet of snow, said Bruce Terry, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service. Winds of up to 40 mph and snow drifts several feet deep are likely, Terry said.
Freezing rain tonight and early Christmas morning could coat roads from northwestern North Carolina to parts of Virginia and central Maryland. Heavy rains were forecast for the Gulf Coast and the Mid-Atlantic region, he said.
Snow on Wednesday caused 260 flight cancellations in Chicago's two major airports, the city's department of aviation said. Dozens of flights in Minneapolis also were canceled, according to Delta Airlines. Travelers should "be prepared for delays," said Delta spokesman Trebor Banstetter.
Across the region, authorities also were bracing for trouble over land.
Slippery roads were blamed for at least six deaths — three in accidents on Interstate 80 in Nebraska, two in a crash on Interstate 70 in Kansas and one on U.S. 285 near Albuquerque.
The Iowa National Guard was lining up Humvee crews to help stranded motorists, said public affairs officer Maj. Mike Wunn. "Always put safety first" when traveling, said Jessica Lown, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, "because Christmas isn't going to be very joyful if you're waiting it out in a ditch."
In South Dakota, National Guard soldiers would be driving snow-removal equipment and hauling firewood to Indian reservations, said Tom Dravland of the state Department of Public Safety. The storm in South Dakota could be the worst the state has seen since 1968, said Greg Harmon with the National Weather Service.
In Minnesota, 800 snowplows were ready to clear highways, state Department of Transportation spokesman Kevin Gutknecht said.
Parts of Nebraska were coated with ice and a number of churches in Omaha canceled Christmas Eve services in anticipation of more bad weather.
In Sioux Falls, S.D., people combined holiday shopping with winter preparations, buying gifts along with shovels and scrapers, said cashier Gloria Pfeifle at Nyberg's Ace Hardware.
Contributing: Jonathan Ellis, Jeff Martin, Peter Harriman of (Sioux Falls) Argus Leader; the Associated Press
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