Icy Storms Leave People Stranded, Powerless

Winter kept a miserable grip on the nation’s midsection Thursday as hundreds of people waited for help on a slippery Texas highway, thousands remained without power and snow piled up in the Dakotas and Minnesota.

Since Christmas Eve, icy storms have snapped tree limbs and knocked out power to nearly 600,000 homes and businesses in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Authorities blame at least 41 deaths on the bad weather: 22 in Texas, 11 in Oklahoma, four in New Mexico, two in Arkansas and one each in Missouri and Minnesota. A Greyhound bus rolled over on an icy stretch of Interstate 80 in Nebraska, injuring 33 people.

Snow fell at an inch per hour in parts of North Dakota and Minnesota, with Fargo, N.D., getting 8 inches in a few hours. Iowa set a new record for December snowfall, and the Mississippi River was largely frozen for a 500-mile stretch from St. Paul, Minn., to south of Rock Island, Ill., delaying cargo shipments along one of the country’s major transportation arteries.

Navigation specialists said that if it didn’t warm up soon, barge traffic delays could turn costly for exporters of Midwest commodities like soybeans, wheat and corn.

“As the system freezes up, barges can’t move anywhere,” said David Grier, an analyst for the Army Corps of Engineers. “If they’re still up there, they’re stuck.”

In rural Texas, 20 National Guardsmen and 10 Humvees helped move trapped vehicles and rescue some of the 1,000 drivers who became stranded along Interstate 20 Wednesday night on Ranger Hill, an icy incline about 80 miles from Fort Worth.

Trucks jackknifed and cars slid into ditches, forcing the closing of a nearly 20-mile stretch of highway. Some travelers were stranded for up to 12 hours. Some drivers and their children passed the time by building snowmen along I-20, and truckers hopped out of their rigs to talk.

Even the Guardsmen had trouble navigating the icy roads--75-minute trips took more than four hours.

President Clinton declared parts of his home state a disaster Thursday as hundreds of broken magnolias littered Arkansas roads.