By Roger Petterson
Associated Press
Thousands
of people waited for the electricity to be turned back on Saturday
as the latest in a series of storms blew blinding snow and bitingly
cold air across the nation's heartland.
Police urged
travelers to stay off the roads in parts of the northern Plains
as blowing snow cut visibility to near zero. Highways had been
shut down overnight in parts of Wyoming, cutting off access to
one town, and wind gusting to 41 mph produced wind chills as low
47 degrees below zero at Fergus Falls, Minn.
''If anybody
gets out on the roads, you're nuts,'' said South Dakota Highway
Patrol Trooper John Norberg in Sioux Falls.
Rotten weather
over the past week had grounded hundreds of airline flights, snarled
highway traffic, closed schools and brought down power lines from
Texas to the Great Lakes and from the Northwest to New England.
The storms were linked to more than a dozen deaths, including
nine in Arkansas.
A separate
storm system in Alabama spawned a series of tornadoes Saturday
that destroyed homes, knocked out power to 43,000 customers and
killed at least 10 people.
More than
125,000 homes and businesses across Arkansas still had no electricity
for heat and lights Saturday. Wind chills expected to be well
below zero by Sunday morning, and some people might not have power
until Tuesday, according to Entergy Arkansas, the state's largest
utility.
An additional
30,000 customers were still without electricity in northwest Louisiana
on Saturday, three days after the region was hit by an ice storm,
and more than 50,000 others remained in the dark in Texas, said
the utility AEP-Swepco.
Saturday's
roughest weather stretched from the northern Rockies to the Mississippi
Valley, with wind driving snow across the northern Plains at more
than 50 mph in places.
Because of
poor visibility, Wyoming authorities closed a number of highways
Friday night, including stretches of Interstates 25 and 80.
All roads
were closed late Friday in and out of Lusk, a ranching community
of 1,500 in east-central Wyoming, stranding people who were in
town for a basketball game. The town's six motels filled up before
Judy Ludemann could get a room.
''The nicest
lady came over at the game and asked us if we had a place to stay
and she took seven of us over to her house, and she didn't know
any of us,'' said Ludemann, who had traveled 110 miles from Upton
to watch her grandson and granddaughter play.
In Iowa, authorities urged people to stay home statewide. A fatal
wreck east of Des Moines closed Interstate 80 in both directions
Saturday, the State Patrol said, poor visibility and a 40-vehicle
pileup closed an 80-mile stretch of I-35 in northern Iowa.
Several counties
were pulling their snowplows off the highways in northwest Iowa
because of the dangerous conditions.
Heavy drifting
snow in eastern North Dakota trapped some travelers along highways
there, said Highway Patrol Sgt. Lori Malafa. ''Our troopers are
unable to get to the vehicles,'' she said. ''We just don't have
the man power or capability to reach them.''
In South Dakota,
several stretches of highway and 150 miles of Interstate 90 were
closed. Gov. Bill Janklow warned that any motorist who became
stranded along a closed stretch of roadway would be arrested.
''I don't
want to, but we have no choice,'' Janklow said. ''It's very dangerous
out there.''
The storm
had dropped 10 inches of snow across parts of Colorado by Saturday
and spawned more than 200 avalanches, according to the Colorado
Avalanche Information Center.
One avalanche
trapped a car on Interstate 70 near the Eisenhower Tunnel, where
wind gusts topped 90 mph, said Colorado Transportation Department
spokeswoman Claudia Lamb. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Northwest
Airlines canceled all flights at Sioux Falls, S.D., Saturday.
United and American had canceled hundreds of flights at Chicago's
O'Hare International in anticipation of freezing rain, snow and
gusting wind, but by afternoon, meteorologists said the worst
weather was missing the area.
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