23-Inch Snow Buries Plains; Rain Hits Gulf : Deep Drifts Block Roads; Scores Are Evacuated

A major storm dumped up to 23 inches of snow on the western plains and piled it in road-blocking drifts up to 12 feet high Saturday. The same storm poured heavy rain from Oklahoma into the Gulf states, forcing scores to evacuate and causing one death.

In Louisiana, tornadoes caused scattered damage Saturday after hitting four towns in eastern Texas on Friday.

Snow and blowing snow continued in southeastern Colorado, where wind gusted to 40 m.p.h., and many roads were closed in the Oklahoma Panhandle and western Kansas, where 12-foot drifts were reported.

“We’re snowed in--we’re out of electricity and can hardly move,” Pete Barnes, mayor of Elkhart, Kan., said Saturday morning. Power was restored before noon by a utility crew that was brought in by helicopter.

Tornado Hits Slidell

Louisiana was hit hard, weather officials said. In the New Orleans suburb of Marrero, about 200 people had to leave their homes to escape floods. A tornado damaged 30 to 40 houses and 20 businesses in Slidell and neighboring parts of St. Tammany Parish, where fallen trees cut power to many subdivisions.

No injuries were reported from the tornado.

Only 10 to 20 houses were flooded in New Orleans, but bags of trash left out for pickup floated down St. Charles Avenue while cars drove along the raised streetcar tracks in the median.

New Orleans and Gretna, on the west bank of the Mississippi, got 8 inches of rain in 12 hours, with more expected, the National Weather Service reported.

One woman drowned early Saturday in Marrero when she turned off a flooded street and drove into a drainage canal, a sheriff’s department sergeant said.

Flood Crests Forecast

Flood crests were forecast from today into Wednesday along many rivers in southern Louisiana.

Water also flowed into dozens of homes Saturday in Mississippi, officials reported. Civil Defense director Wade Guice said 4.2 inches of rain fell on Harrison County from midnight to noon Saturday and that the flooding was not from streams but from water standing on already saturated ground.

Oklahoma had floods and snow, from 23 inches of snow in the Panhandle to 4 feet of water in streets in Skiatook, in the northeastern part of the state.

Skiatook fire officials said about 30 homes were evacuated and more than 15 businesses were shut after Bird Creek overflowed. The water began to recede Saturday afternoon, officials said.

In the Oklahoma Panhandle, “We’re just now starting to open some roads back up,” said Rick Foreman of the Highway Patrol. He said all but two highways in Cimarron and Texas counties were closed during the morning.

Motels Fill to Capacity

Interstate 70 from Goodland, Kan., to Limon, Colo., remained closed at dusk Saturday, and the Kansas Highway Patrol shut a 100-mile stretch of the interstate’s westbound lanes, from Goodland to Wa Keeney, Kan., after motels in Goodland filled to capacity.

In the adjacent southeastern corner of Colorado, 20 inches of snow had fallen at Walsh, with 16 inches at Fowler. The weather service reported drifts 5 feet high.

In nearby Clayton, N.M., where 8 to 10 inches of snow fell, travelers left Saturday after spending the night stranded. More than 200 people took shelter there at churches, the National Guard Armory and the Fire Department.