Bitter cold sweeps through heartland
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
It was a balmy minus 5 Sunday morning on South Main Street after a bone-chilling night during which temperatures fell to about 12 degrees below zero. In the first major winter storm of the season, Maryville received about two inches of snow, and icy roads were blamed for a flurry of minor accidents. However, no serious injuries or fatalities were reported in Nodaway County.
The first major winter storm of the season turned western Missouri into a deep freeze over the weekend with numbing cold, snow, and ice covering most of the region.
There were no major weather-related accidents in the Maryville area, but police reported at least eight fender-benders on Friday, and a Nodaway County ambulance crew was dispatched to the scene of an accident on Highway 71 south of town. There were no reports of serious injuries.
Other parts of the state weren’t so lucky. According to the Associated Press, at least three highway deaths in Missouri were blamed on icy conditions.
The Missouri Department of Transportation issued a series of advisories over the weekend, warning motorists to avoid travel if possible through Sunday due to ice-covered pavement and extreme cold.
In Maryville overnight Saturday thermometers recorded temperatures as low as 12 degrees below zero after about two inches of snow fell across much of the county earlier in the day.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported that a 13-year-old girl died from injuries suffered in an accident early Friday in Laclede County in southwest Missouri. The patrol stated that the driver of a tractor-trailer lost control on ice on Interstate 44, striking a Jeep Renegade driven by the girl’s mother.
In addition two men aged 72 and 56 died in separate accidents when the vehicles they were in went out of control while rolling over slick pavement.
Western Missouri bore the brunt of the storm early before the misery moved east, bringing freezing drizzle to St. Louis for a second straight day. MoDOT briefly closed Interstate 70 Saturday morning near the western Missouri town of Oak Grove due to icy conditions.
Though bitter cold in the Maryville area lasted through Sunday, when the high reached about 10 degrees, the National Weather Service reported that relief of a sort was on the way.
Today’s high was expected to reach 28 degrees above freezing under sunny skies with temperatures rising into the mid-30s on Tuesday.
Elsewhere in the four-state region, ice and snow caused dozens of car crashes in Iowa and Nebraska, resulting in at least one fatality in Omaha.
Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies said the death occurred Friday night when the victim’s car slid off an icy road north of the city, struck a tree, and burst into flames.
Across Nebraska snow fell intermittently from Friday afternoon into Saturday, with amounts of up to three inches reported over much of the eastern part of the state.
The snow moved into Iowa overnight and continued falling through Saturday. One to three inches of snow was expected in much of Iowa, and more than four inches were forecast in the northernmost part of the state.
Extreme winter weather also hit the East Coast, causing hundreds of accidents on icy roads and at least nine deaths.
Perhaps the worst wreck happened in Baltimore, Maryland, where a tanker truck carrying gasoline skidded off a highway and exploded.
Two people died in a 70-vehicle pileup on Interstate 95. Hospital officials said nearly two-dozen people were treated for injuries that included broken bones and head trauma.
Elsewhere, there were dozens of crashes in Indiana and Ohio, at least three of them involving fatalities.
Temperatures in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, area dropped to minus-20 degrees overnight Saturday, and parts of six states from Missouri to Mississippi were under the threat of tornadoes or severe thunderstorms.
In Colorado, a foot of snow fell in places, snarling traffic. Even weather-hardened locals had trouble driving.
“I worked for the fire department for 45 years, and we used to call this ‘highway hockey’ because people keep bumping into each other,” said Kevin Sweeney, of Brighton, a town about 20 miles northeast of Denver. “I think it’s that first big snow thing.”
In North Carolina, police and emergency workers reported more than 100 crashes overnight in Raleigh and Charlotte as drizzle combined with temperatures below freezing to create dangerous icy patches.
Charlotte police reported two people killed in separate crashes early Saturday, although investigators were still trying to figure out if ice caused the wrecks.
