RAWLINS, Wyo.
- Thousands of stranded motorists sought shelter as a snowstorm
shut down 200 miles of Interstate 80 and caused a 12-car pileup
east of Laramie on Saturday.
Interstate
80 was closed between Rock Springs and Cheyenne for a second day
after cars slid and crashed on the icy asphalt.
Hotels quickly
filled with travelers waiting for the interstate to reopen. The
American Red Cross expected 2,600 people in two shelters in Rawlins
and 200 people at a shelter in Rock Springs.
``We were
on our way back from a vacation in Yellowstone and we got kind
of caught by surprise here,'' said Robert Eves, 40, of Erie, Ill.,
who was with his wife and 2-year-old son at a Rawlins shelter
and expected to end up in a sleeping bag on the floor overnight.
The family
had been forced to stay at a shelter in Wamsutter on Friday because
of an interstate closure, and had gotten only 40 miles before
the interstate was closed again.
The storm
draped a swath of snow up to 15 inches deep from Encampment to
Casper before heading southwest into Colorado late Saturday night.
It was expected to taper off by Sunday, leaving behind temperatures
in the 50s and 60s on Monday.
``The worst
of the accumulations is probably over,'' said meteorologist Mike
Weiland of the National Weather Service in Cheyenne.
That was little
comfort to the owners of hundreds of tractor-trailers, campers
and cars that lined the interstate and Rawlins neighborhood streets
Saturday evening. Truck drivers were asked to not park their rigs
close together to avoid carbon monoxide problems, said Brady Fox
of the American Red Cross.
About 1,000
people who had been in Rawlins shelters Friday night swamped Interstate
80 when it reopened briefly. The interstate had been shut down
Friday from Laramie to Rawlins and closed all the way to the Utah
line early Saturday.
A 12-car pileup
east of Laramie was part of the reason for Saturday's closure.
Two tractor-trailers crashed in the area, and other motorists
were injured, but there was no word on how extensively, a Wyoming
Highway Patrol dispatcher said.
The closure
came as football fans were traveling to Laramie for an evening
game between Wyoming and Nevada. Football players were also stuck
in traffic, delaying the 7 p.m. kickoff by an hour.
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