CHICAGO – Utility crews worked overtime yesterday to restore electrical service to thousands of customers still blacked out by the Midwest's first big snowstorm of the season.
As temperatures plummeted below freezing in the storm's aftermath, officials said some people could be without power for days. Missouri National Guard teams went door to door in the St. Louis area to make sure residents were surviving the cold.
The storm was blamed for at least 13 deaths as it spread ice and deep snow from Texas to Michigan and then blew through the Northeast late Friday and early yesterday.
Schools and businesses were shuttered, and hundreds of airline passengers had been stranded by canceled flights.
Trees were blown onto homes and cars, and a big Christmas tree in front of the New Hampshire Statehouse was toppled.
Truck driver David Huwe got his 18-wheeler and load of frozen food back on the road yesterday after being stuck for more than 12 hours at a rest stop near Princeton, Ill., on Interstate 80, which was blocked by scores of trucks and cars that slid off the icy highway.
“I was supposed to be (in California) Sunday night,” Huwe said by cell phone yesterday morning. He had revised his arrival time and hoped he'd make it by tomorrow.
Red Cross volunteers at Decatur had helped out some of those stranded I-80 travelers by ordering 100 McDonald's hamburgers, which were then airlifted by the National Guard.
“We had 35 minutes from the time we got the call to the airlift,” Deb Helm said. McDonald's “was what was available.”
Many areas of Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri got more than a foot of snow, including 16 inches in parts of central Missouri and 17 inches at Manistee, Mich. Fifteen inches fell as far south as Bartlesville, Okla.
Airlines were recovering from the widespread cancellations caused by the storm; delays at Lambert Airport in St. Louis were generally 15 minutes or less yesterday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
There were no measurable delays yesterday at Chicago's two major airports, said Wendy Abrams, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation.
Highways were mostly clear but still had icy spots. “Nobody really should travel unless you absolutely have to get out,” Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt said.
More than 464,000 Ameren Corp. customers were without power in Missouri and Illinois yesterday afternoon, along with about 500 customers of ComEd in the greater Chicago area.
Blunt dispatched 150 Missouri National Guardsmen to the St. Louis region, along with 30 Humvees and a number of trucks.
