Deep Snow Imperils Plains Livestock, Cuts Roads

A blizzard plastered the northern plains with deep snow driven by winds of up to 65 m.p.h. Friday, endangering livestock and stranding travelers along hundreds of miles of blocked highways.

The storm barreled into Minnesota on Friday night. Blizzard warnings were issued for the northwestern part of the state, and wet snow and 35 m.p.h. wind made driving hazardous.

“We’ve mostly had people sliding off the road. We’re not even pulling them out. We’re just getting people out of the vehicles,” Nebraska State Patrol dispatcher Alex Haberkorn said in Scottsbluff.

Several hundred pupils in Colorado spent the night in their schools. Some travelers bedded down on the floors of a courthouse. North Dakota Capitol workers were sent home Friday about an hour after they arrived.

Numerous minor accidents were reported as vehicles slid on ice and snow, and many schools closed. Snow plows could not keep up with the drifting snow in many areas.

The snow was even too much of a good thing for one ski resort.

“We must have close to 4 foot. Even the ski slopes are closed,” said Bob Ekeren, manager of the Terry Peak Lodge in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Snow buried cars at the lodge and would-be skiers stayed inside, he said.

Winds gusting to 60 m.p.h. were reported at Ft. Morgan, Colo., and up to 65 m.p.h. at Rapid City, S.D.

About 40 inches of snow fell in two days in the mountains of Utah at the Alta ski resort, with 37 inches at Snowbird.

The weather threatened thousands of newborn calves, and ranchers in the Nebraska Sandhills region worked around the clock to get animals to shelter.

“The men are just exhausted. . . . We worked all night long,” Marianne Beel said. “We had 300 calves born yesterday. We’re dragging them in, separating them from their mothers.”

Hundreds of miles of interstate highways throughout eastern Wyoming, northeast Colorado, the Dakotas and the Nebraska Panhandle were closed and towns were cut off.

In the Nebraska Panhandle, all roads in and out of Kimball were closed and Civil Defense Director Dan Jenson estimated that 600 travelers spent the night in the town of 3,800 residents.

Hotels and motels were filled, and residents opened their homes, he said. But many spent the night at the Kimball County Courthouse, and about 200 truckers slept in their trucks.

School bus driver Linda Barret and her 13 riders took refuge Thursday at a farm about 20 miles from Harrisburg, Neb., when the storm cut visibility, and bus driver Sharon Grubbs and her eig1752440946farm 17 miles from Harrisburg, in western Nebraska.

They were still there Friday and planned to spend a second night, authorities said.

Interstate 80 was closed for more than 300 miles, from Walcott, Wyo., to Rock Springs, Neb., because of snowdrifts and low visibility.