Storm Pummels Midwest Deadly Sub-Zero Temperatures, Winds Shut Down Schools, Cause Blackouts
A ferocious storm roared through the Middle West on Wednesday night, followed by deadly subzero temperatures and strong winds that closed schools, created havoc on roads and slowed commerce in much of the region Thursday.
Temperatures are expected to remain below zero in many areas today before climbing slowly this weekend.
A few deaths, most in traffic accidents, have been blamed on the storm. Farther south, icy conditions from the same weather front caused more power blackouts in Louisiana and Texas.
Another weather system bringing unusual cold to Southern California has been blamed for the deaths from exposure of 10 illegal immigrants trying to cross the border from Mexico in the last week.
President Clinton declared a major disaster Thursday in nearly half of the counties in Minnesota, where local snow-removal budgets are depleted and the Legislature is considering a $20 million emergency appropriation.
The latest storm generally dumped only a few inches of snow on the northern tier of states - Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota. But the snow fell in blizzardlike conditions and created huge drifts. Winds of 40 miles an hour or more persisted after the snow had moved on, plunging wind chill factors Thursday morning to 70 degrees to 80 degrees below zero in some areas.
All public schools in Minnesota were ordered closed.
In Illinois and farther south, the storm brought as much as a foot of snow and some of the worst weather this winter.
Public schools in Chicago were closed Thursday for the first time since 1993, although school buildings were opened as emergency shelters. The city announced that classes also would be canceled today.
“What’s bizarre now is how widespread the bad weather is,” said Dick Ritchie, a manager for Schneider National, a trucking company based in Green Bay, Wis. “It stretches from Texas, where we’ve gotten ice storms, to Canada and east to New England. We’ve got truckers stuck all over the place.”
The storm forced numerous flight cancellations and delays at the region’s airports. Chicago officials set up cots and provided coffee for travelers stranded at O’Hare International Airport on Wednesday night.
Farmers have been hard-hit in some areas, especially cattle ranchers in the northern Plains. North Dakota and South Dakota had already been declared disaster areas after being hit by a larger storm over the weekend.
Many ranchers are running out of hay and alfalfa, partly because the early onset of snow in November forced them to start feeding it earlier than usual to cattle that normally live off of range-land grasses, and partly because supplies stacked in fields are unreachable.
“We estimate that up to 4,000 cattle had died around here even before Wednesday’s storm,” said Vince Gunn, an agricultural extension agent in Perkins County, S.D. “I know one farmer who has hay only 800 feet from the barn but can’t get to it because of 20-foot snow drifts.”
Hay and alfalfa prices are already double their normal winter levels. Some ranchers report traveling as far as 600 miles in search of feed. But finding feed to buy does not guarantee that it can be delivered.
“I normally haul a lot of corn to Montana and North Dakota,” said Junior Van Dusseldorp, who farms 10,000 acres near Kimball, S.D. “But we just can’t get there.”
The persistent bad weather in the upper Plains states is most dangerous to isolated farm dwellers, but it has also disrupted many other lives. In Timberlake, S.D., the weather has allowed children to attend only two days of school since Dec. 13.The Agriculture Department, which is working on a program to provide emergency farm grants to open roads and bring in feed, estimates 20,000 cattle in North Dakota are in immediate danger.