Storm Brings Snow, Closures From Great Lakes to Georgia

Schools closed and traffic slowed to a crawl from the Great Lakes all the way into Georgia on Tuesday, as a storm buried some places under more than a foot of snow, along with layers of ice.

In Chicago, where snow fell off and on for 14 hours, more than a third of the arriving and departing flights were canceled at O’Hare International Airport and blowing snow created near whiteout conditions at the storm’s height.

Air travel suffered across the Midwest. Sixteen inches of snow piled up at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, closing it briefly for the first time in three years. Fourteen inches fell in Iowa, 10 in Indiana, Ohio and Maryland. A foot was possible by today in the West Virginia mountains.

It was the first major snowstorm of the season for Washington, D.C., leading the House to postpone all floor votes and delaying flights in and out of Dulles and Ronald Reagan National airports.

The unexpectedly heavy snowfall forced schools and the federal government to close early and created traffic chaos.

Major avenues resembled parking lots almost all day as people tried to get home early or pick up their children. Secondary roads were mostly impassable.

By late morning, Washington’s Metro subway system had added extra cars as federal workers fled the snowbound city.

D.C. General Hospital issued an appeal for four-wheel drive vehicles to transport essential workers to and from their jobs.

The snow also caused flight delays and cancellations from Monday evening into Tuesday at airports in Milwaukee, Detroit, Pittsburgh and some Ohio cities.

In northeastern Georgia, a layer of ice under 2 inches of snow created havoc.

“The roads aren’t closed but they’re impassable,” said Deputy Sheriff John Keener in Rabun County, Ga.

Freezing rain also glazed parts of central and southern West Virginia.

The storm, in varying intensity, covered parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania.

It had swept eastward across the Plains, closing scores of schools Monday in Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa, and churning up thunderstorms in the South and southern Plains.

By Tuesday, snow flew across the Great Lakes states to the Atlantic and southward along the Appalachians, closing schools in 39 of West Virginia’s 55 counties.

“We really haven’t had a bad winter,” said Jesse Richey in Elkins, W.Va. “But we’ve had more snow here in the past couple of weeks than in the whole rest of the season put together.”

At least six traffic deaths were blamed on the weather, two in Iowa and one each in Minnesota, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia.