Winter storm packs wallop across U.S.

A winter storm battered states from the Plains through the Midwest on Wednesday, sending travelers slipping and sliding over icy roads, dumping a foot of snow over some areas and pushing temperatures to bitter-cold levels.

What may guarantee a white Christmas for some was a pre-Christmas nightmare for others.

“There’s snow on the highway and people are sliding off the highways, rolling over, and 18-wheelers are jackknifing,” said a Texas Department of Public Safety operator in Abilene who counted 17 accidents by 8 a.m. in an eight-county area in West Texas. “People don’t know to stay home.”

Snow – or an icy mix of snow and sleet – fell from New Mexico, where some schools were closed, to the lower Great Lakes.

The storm marked the leading edge of bitterly cold air flowing southward.

Highs only in the teens were forecast Wednesday in the northern Texas Panhandle, where wind chills today could be as low as 15 below zero, the National Weather Service said.

At the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, several flights were canceled and others were delayed up to two hours on average as workers deiced about 200 planes an hour, airport spokesman Ken Capps said.

In Ohio, airport delays were blamed mostly on planes arriving from other storm-battered locations.

There were at least three weather-related traffic deaths: one each in New Mexico, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

In Tennessee, a hiker who collapsed along the snow-covered Appalachian Trail was rescued; he’d called for help from his cell phone Tuesday.

In Louisville, Ky., ditches were littered with vehicles that slid off icy roads.

The precipitation started as rain through Kentucky then turned to snow as temperatures dropped; the heaviest snowfall was expected in western and north-central Kentucky, where accumulations could reach a foot after another round of snow tonight, forecasters said.

Parts of Arkansas looked forward to only the ninth white Christmas in 120 years as the storm barreled across the state, closing businesses, shuttering restaurants and snarling traffic.