At Least 8 People Die as Record Blizzard Continues Pelting Rockies, Plains States

Rescuers used helicopters, snowmobiles and military vehicles Sunday to pick up snowbound travelers and residents left without heat by a record blizzard that piled snowdrifts up to 15 feet high.

By Sunday night, all stranded motorists were believed to have been rescued, said David Holm, chief of operations for the Colorado Office of Emergency Management. He said a few hunters remained missing and crews would resume searching Monday.

At least eight people died during the storm.

In Colorado, four people were found dead in their cars and were believed to have died from freezing or carbon monoxide poisoning.

An unattended candle supplying light in a house without power started a fire that killed one woman in Omaha, Neb.; it took firefighters about half an hour to reach the house because of the weather.

Grand Island, Neb., police say 50-year-old James Coon died Sunday of an apparent heart attack while blowing snow on his property.

An 11-year-old boy from tiny Stratton in eastern Colorado died Sunday at Children’s Hospital in Denver after he spent a night in the cold, a hospital spokeswoman said. The boy got lost sledding Saturday, Denver’s KMGH-TV reported.

The body of a Texas County, Oklahoma, woman who tried to walk home in a blizzard was found Sunday buried under about 18 inches of snow less than a mile from her home, authorities said. Irene Fast, 77, tried to walk home after her car got stuck in a snowdrift Saturday.

The blizzard that blew through the Rockies and onto the Plains on Saturday left as much as 50 inches of snow in the Colorado Rockies, 22 inches in parts of Denver and 35 inches in the city’s suburbs.

The storm moved eastward Sunday, dumping snow from eastern Kansas through Missouri and Iowa and into Wisconsin and eastern Michigan. Heavy snow fell in Utah on Friday and flakes fell as far south as the Texas Panhandle on Saturday.

Thousands of customers were without electricity for light or heat Sunday in Nebraska and Iowa.

Hundreds of miles of highways remained closed Sunday, including one 185-mile stretch of Interstate 80 across eastern Nebraska, and some travelers in Kansas were stymied by 4-foot drifts.

The Nebraska State Patrol estimated 200 vehicles involving 500 people were stranded on the Interstate and highways Sunday.

There were no reports of injuries to those stranded on the highway. The patrol worked all day to free the stranded motorists and expected that many of them would get out on their own.

At least 1,000 vehicles abandoned in the snow made it difficult for Colorado crews to plow a 160-mile stretch of Interstate 25 that was closed from south of Denver to near the New Mexico state line, said Bill Vidal, executive director of the state transportation department.