Second Wave of Blizzards Hits Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas

A second wave of spring blizzards swept through the central Plains on Saturday, closing hundreds of miles of major interstate roads in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas as the National Guard conducted search and rescue missions for stranded motorists.

The storm spread snow from western Texas to South Dakota and southern Minnesota, producing winds of more than 50 m.p.h.

Blizzard conditions were reported in much of western and north-central Kansas, where about a foot of snow fell, and across central and northeast Nebraska.

Nearly 250 miles of Interstate 70 from the town of Russell in central Kansas west to Limon, Colo., were closed because of poor visibility from blowing and drifting snow.

The greatest snowfall amounts were 10 inches at Goodland and Hill City, Kan., the National Weather Service reported.

Interstate 80 in Nebraska was closed for about 280 miles from Lincoln west to the Wyoming border, or about two-thirds of the state’s major east-west highway.

The blizzard conditions prompted the adjutant general’s office in Kansas to call out the National Guard late Friday because severe icing stranded motorists on I-70.

In southwest Kansas, more than 60 people sought refuge at the armory in Garden City.

Hotels, motels, cafes, churches and town halls from eastern Colorado into Kansas and Nebraska were filled with motorists looking for a place to escape the weather and keep warm.