Storm Puts Midwest on the Skids

The only sign of holiday cheer at Detroit International Airport on Thursday morning came on those all-too-rare moments when the public-address system crackled with news of a flight landing or taking off.

That would spark a hurrah that rippled through the terminal.

Because it meant that some travelers, at last, were getting where they wanted to be for Christmas.

Nationwide, many more were stuck.

A powerful storm ripped across the Midwest and as far south as the Texas Panhandle Wednesday night and into Thursday. Twelve people were killed in weather-related traffic accidents; Arkansas, Ohio and Oklahoma reported the most fatalities.

The storm dumped up to 2 feet of snow in some regions. A few cities -- among them, Paducah, Ky., and Evansville, Ind. -- got more snow in a day than they normally get in a year. Highways were snarled, driveways blocked, cars buried. Last-minute shoppers were out of luck: Malls closed early, or didn’t open at all.

In southern Indiana, thousands of motorists were stuck in their cars for as long as 14 hours as a 30-mile stretch of Interstate 64 turned into an icebound parking lot, with traffic not moving so much as a foot all night. The annual Holidazzle parade in Minneapolis was canceled for Thursday evening because of extreme cold, with a wind chill of minus 35 degrees expected by nightfall.

In central Ohio, more than 300,000 people were without power -- and without much hope of getting it back in time to prepare their Christmas Eve roasts.

“We may just have to eat potato chips,” said Mara Klopfer, a real estate agent in New Albany.

Farther south, just outside Cincinnati, Sharon Siepel awoke to an icy layer cake: 6 inches of snow topped by thick ice topped by another 6 inches of snow. Only her 2-year-old could make it more than a few steps out the front door. Everyone else in the family sank thigh-deep. “The kids are having a ball just trying to get around,” Siepel said.

In Detroit, meanwhile, Wally Stelf paced a terminal packed with grouchy travelers, wondering whether the storm was a sign.

He had been planning, nervously, to propose to his girlfriend in Phoenix this weekend. Now he had plenty of time to think about it. Too much time, perhaps. “Maybe I need to go get a beer,” he said.

“There’s got to be a better way to do this,” groaned another stranded traveler, Terrance Geri, who was expected in Dallas for a family holiday party. “Maybe we should all just take the train next year.”

By Thursday afternoon, some of the air and ground congestion in the Midwest had eased as the storm swept east and began pounding New England with heavy rain. But some areas were still impassible. Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan declared a disaster emergency in the southern part of the state and urged residents to stay off the roads so that state police and National Guard could clear away stranded vehicles.

Operations of the nation’s three largest package shippers were returning to normal, but the storm snarled holiday gift-package deliveries for FedEx Corp., UPS Inc. and DHL, Associated Press reported.

UPS and DHL, which is part of a German postal service, said the weather had caused many deliveries to be delayed, and FedEx suspended its money-back service guarantee because of the weather, according to AP.

The weather today should be clear across much of the country, other than a few rain showers in the Northwest and over the Gulf Coast.

“Nothing Rudolph’s nose can’t get him through,” said meteorologist Tom Carlson of Weather Central Inc. in Madison, Wis.

Except for the biting cold already settling in across the upper Midwest, Christmas Day looks good, too, Carlson said.

But for millions slammed by the worst of the midweek storm, the promise of a nice weekend was small consolation.

In Florence, Ky., Matt Gallaher was stuck at Straus Tobacconist on Thursday afternoon -- 24 hours after he had first clocked in for work. He had spent the night on a chair in the tobacco shop.

“We tried to dig our cars out, but after about 15 minutes we were like, to heck with it, let’s go fix some coffee,” Gallaher said. Luckily he had a few bags of groceries in the car; dinner was a can of Chef Boyardee.

In the decorated-to-the-hilt town of Santa Claus, Ind., Becky Heim also was stranded at work, at a local inn called Santa’s Lodge. Unsure when she’d make it back home to her three children, Heim was trying to look on the bright side. “It’s really pretty to be at Santa’s Lodge with all this snow,” she said. “But it’s a lot of snow.”

Farther south, where the storm was not as severe, the taste of winter weather was welcomed.

In the small Texas Panhandle town of Perryton, Cindy Kennedy said she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a white Christmas. About an inch of powdery snow had accumulated, she said -- enough to frost the trees and lift holiday spirits.

“It’s so peaceful and clean,” Kennedy said. “It does make it feel a little more like Christmas.”

Simon reported from St. Louis and Huffstutter from Detroit.