Blizzard Rolls East as Roads Reopen in Northern Plains

Snowbound cross-country bus passengers whooped and hollered for joy Wednesday as Interstate 94 began opening up to traffic after a two-day blizzard.

Greyhound buses loaded up at midmorning at the Lone Steer Motel as the sun peeked through on parts of the northern Plains.

“One day here was OK,” said Denise Nicks, who was headed to Eugene, Ore., from Massachusetts to visit relatives when her bus slid into a ditch Monday near Steele. “But two days is too much.”

The interstate was reopened Wednesday afternoon, even as the blizzard brought snowdrifts to Minnesota, closing more roads there.

Police wouldn’t let anyone drive out of Marshall, Minn., where trucker Tom Leesch had been stuck in a motel since Tuesday morning because of the blowing snow.

“You could hardly see off the hood of your truck,” Leesch said. “You couldn’t see any lines on the road.”

Road crews cleared enough snow from I-29 that its lower third--from Fargo to South Dakota--was reopened Wednesday night. Earlier, 31 travelers were rescued after spending a night at a rest stop near Christine.

Duane Isaacson spent the night in the wayside’s men’s room. “It was either A, the men’s room or, B, the ladies’ room, and I chose the men’s room,” Isaacson, of Center, said by cellular phone.

Highways had opened up in Wyoming and much of South Dakota, which had reports of drifts up to 9 feet high near the western town of Wall.

Hard snowdrifts were too much for aging snowplows at a South Dakota Indian reservation.

“The snow is too compact,” said Wilbur Pleets of the Standing Rock Reservation. “It keeps breaking the blades.” He said new equipment was on order but may not arrive until Friday.

The blizzard was part of a sharp wedge of Arctic air driving southward across the nation. Morning temperatures fell all the way to 1 above zero in the Texas Panhandle, and even New Orleans got a very rare trace of snow.

New Orleans City Hall closed early Wednesday, as did many southern Louisiana schools and businesses.

Residents of Alabama’s Gulf Coast were warned of freezing temperatures and many schools closed early as sleet and snow flew in the state’s western counties.

The Alabama port city of Mobile got a snow blanket of 1 to 3 inches, and up to 4 inches fell north of town.

A light snow snarled afternoon rush-hour traffic in Atlanta, where snowplows were on standby at Hartsfield International Airport. By Wednesday night, as many as half the airport’s flights were canceled.

On the northern Plains, wind chills hit 50 below zero in the Dakotas, Nebraska and western Minnesota.

“It’s colder than you-know-what up here,” said Dave Eby, an owner of Eby’s Inc. gas station at O’Neill, Neb.