A sloppy storm dumped more than a year’s worth of snow on parts of the Midwest and made a mess of holiday travel and last-minute Christmas shopping Thursday. More than a dozen traffic deaths were blamed on the storm.
The heavy snowfall and icy roads stranded motorists and delayed flights ahead of a holiday weekend in which a record 62 million were expected to travel.
National Guardsmen rescued more than 100 motorists who had been stranded overnight along a snowy 25-mile stretch of Interstate 64 in southwestern Indiana, and were looking for more people who were stuck.
“I was scared, wondering about the kids. How was I going to feed them?” said Mary Craddock, a 28-year-old waitress from Hartford, Ky., who was stranded on the interstate in Evansville, Ind.
Temperatures in Evansville dipped into the teens and Wednesday’s snowfall of 19.3 inches topped the city’s average total winter snowfall of 14.2 inches.
In Kentucky, dozens of travelers were stranded overnight along Interstates 71 and 24. Motorists on I-71 bunked down in the lobby and hallways at the Best Western Executive Inn at Carrollton. Weary travelers were sprawled across chairs in the dining room, others curled up in corners or under stairs, using rolled-up towels as pillows.
Paducah, Ky., received 14 inches of snow, topping the yearly average of 10 inches and doubling its previous one-day record. In some parts of south-central Kentucky, the ice was 2 to 4 inches thick.
“This is a storm you might see two or three of these in your adult life,” said David Humphrey, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Paducah.
Electric companies in Ohio said 360,000 homes and businesses there were without power, mostly around the Columbus area. Company officials said some customers may not see power until today or even Saturday.
Flights were delayed or canceled at Ohio’s Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati airports as crews struggled to clear runways and de-ice planes.
AAA is predicting this will be the busiest holiday travel season ever, in part because Christmas and New Year’s Eve fall on weekends this year. AAA spokesman Mantill Williams said nearly 51 million people are traveling by car.
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