Icy Storm Coats Highways Across Southwest; 15 Dead

A storm blamed for at least 15 deaths blocked highways in the Southwest on Saturday, chilling normally warm desert winter refuges and blowing snow across the Great Plains.

Ice- and snow-covered roads and streets caused scores of accidents and stranded travelers in New Mexico. Gov. Garrey E. Carruthers sent the National Guard out to distribute food, cots and blankets, and State Police discouraged travel statewide.

Carruthers toured snowpacked north-central New Mexico in a four-wheel-drive vehicle Saturday, then issued a disaster declaration to authorize state aid to clear roads, get food and medicine to isolated residents and feed stranded livestock in Mora, Torrance, Hidalgo and San Miguel counties.

Winter storm warnings were issued for much of New Mexico and over northwestern and north-central Texas, and advisories were posted for parts of Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Los Alamos, N.M., had 50 inches of snow by Saturday.

The storm was blamed for five deaths in New Mexico, four in Texas, two deaths each in Arizona and Missouri and one each in Colorado and Oklahoma.

Tucson, a desert mecca for winter refugees, had a record low of 19 degrees, and ice forced police to close most bridges and overpasses overnight.

Some state highways were closed by snow in mountainous northern Arizona, where Flagstaff had a record low of 13 below zero.

About 80 people were sheltered overnight at a community center at Moriarty, N.M., east of Albuquerque, City Clerk Karen Armijo said. The National Guard sent food and 100 cots and blankets to the city, which had 14 inches of snow. About 100 stranded travelers spent the night in a church at Mountainair, southeast of Albuquerque, sheriff’s dispatcher Runnel Riley said.

In the Texas Panhandle, runways at Amarillo’s airport were open but with a half-inch layer of packed snow “and six-foot piles along each side,” air traffic manager Herb Sellers said.

Roads throughout Oklahoma were slick and hazardous, the state Highway Patrol reported. Highways were slippery over most of Kansas, where Topeka had five inches of snow and Wichita four.