Blizzard Whites Out Plains Highways

Stranded travelers packed the Lone Steer motel as many as five to a room Tuesday to wait out a blizzard that cut visibility nearly to zero, bringing much of the northern Plains to a standstill.

Greyhound shut down all east-bound service on the route between Missoula and Minneapolis. Hundreds of miles of highway were closed across North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska, and schools were closed across the region because of dangerous roads.

“We really mean it - absolutely no travel,” said South Dakota Highway Patrol Lt. Don Bender.

About 7 inches of snow was on the ground in Fargo and Grand Forks, and wind up to 60 mph blew the snow in blinding clouds. In eastern Wyoming, the gales pushed wind chills to nearly 50 below zero.

Zickar Elias, a native of Syria, had been stuck since Monday, when the Greyhound bus he was on slid into a ditch near Steele.

He was bound from Allentown, Pa., to Spokane for a citizenship ceremony and had to call and say he would miss it.

Wyoming’s northeastern corner was shut off from the outside world and hundreds of trucks were waiting out the weather in Sheridan, Gillette and Buffalo.

In northwestern Minnesota, a semi rear-ended a car stopped on a highway and sent several people to the hospital with injuries.

In Montana, Lee Ehlert of Alaska and several others were stuck Tuesday night in a bus station in Billings.

He was traveling to Wisconsin to visit his mother in a hospital.

“I’m going to get home,” Ehlert said. “I just don’t know when.”