Feb 13, 2007 12:01 pm US/Pacific
Deadly Storms Sweep Nation As Many Brace For Cold
Cold, Wet Weather Expected To Blanket Midwest To Northeast
INDIANAPOLIS (CBS) ―
A blast of wind-driven snow and plunging temperatures created headaches for travelers Tuesday across the Midwest with canceled flights and slick, slushy roads. In the south, a powerful storm and likely a tornado hit the New Orleans area, killing one and injuring at least 15 others.
A blizzard warning was in effect until midnight for counties north of Indianapolis, and up to a foot of snow was possible across Indiana's midsection.
As the storm pushed eastward, the National Weather Service issued winter storm watches and warnings extending from Iowa and Missouri across the Ohio Valley into parts of New England.
Snow was already falling in the mid-Atlantic states by midmorning.
WBBM-TV meteorologist Ed Curran says 5 to 8 inches of snow can be expected in the Chicago and western suburbs, but south of Interstate 80 in both Illinois and Indiana, 8 to 13 inches may fall.
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport canceled over 400 flights Tuesday, said city aviation department spokeswoman Wendy Abrams. Midway Airport canceled about 100 flights. A handful of flights also were canceled at the Indianapolis International Airport, and about 20 percent of the flights out of Cincinnati's main airport were canceled because of poor conditions elsewhere, spokesmen said.
Schools were canceled or delayed in several states.
Northeast Ohio was expecting up to 10 inches of snow Tuesday, plus 10 more by Wednesday night, when temperatures were expected to plummet to low single digits, meteorologists said. Illinois was expecting accumulations of 12 inches.
More than 10 inches of snow had fallen in north-central Indiana by late morning and wind gusting to 40 mph piled the snow into drifts up to 3 feet high, weather service meteorologist Logan Johnson said in Indianapolis.
Snow removal service owner Mark Hawk started plowing parking lots and subdivisions at about 4:30 a.m. in Carmel, a northern suburb of Indianapolis.
"I'd get something done, and I'd have to go back over my work because it didn't look like I had done anything" because the snow was falling fast and blowing, Hawk said.
Officials in Fountain County in west-central Indiana declared a snow emergency, and roads were closed except for "extreme emergency traffic."
"People are sliding off everywhere," said county Emergency Management Director Joe Whittaker.
Along the southern edge of the snow belt, freezing rain was expected to coat roads, tree limbs and power lines with as much as a quarter-inch of ice Tuesday. Rain and thunderstorms extended farther south, producing a possible tornado that damaged dozens of homes in the New Orleans area.
At least two people were killed and more injured in several road accidents Monday in Nebraska, where roads were icy and blowing snow brought poor visibility.
Cold air dragged southward by the weather system dropped the temperature at Grand Forks, N.D., from 11 below zero at midnight to 20 below at midmorning, the weather service said. Temperatures as low as minus 15 were possible in northern Illinois.
In New York state, where communities on the eastern end of Lake Ontario have endured a week of lake-effect snow measured in feet instead of inches, forecasters said the storm could produce 8 to 20 inches of snow in some areas.
The upstate New York town of Redfield is the hardest hit. Incomplete records prevent the weather service from calling the 11 feet, 9 inches of snow that fell there over the past 10 days an official record, but it does beat the 10 feet, 7 inches that fell in nearby Montague over seven days ending Jan. 1, 2002.
Deadly weather struck in the south when a powerful storm and likely a tornado hit the New Orleans area early Tuesday, killing an elderly woman, injuring at least 15 other people, damaging dozens of homes and business, and ripping the roof off a hotel.
An 86-year-old woman died in Gentilly, one of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina 18 months ago, and six other people were taken to hospitals, said James Ross, a spokesman for Mayor Ray Nagin. Ten structures were destroyed, he said; he did not know what or where they were.
CBS station WWL-TV reported that nine people were injured across the Mississippi River in Westwego, six of them in the Bon Soir Hotel, which lost its roof.
WWL-TV reporter Jonathan Betz said the hotel looks as if a "bomb went off" and that it is completely gutted.
The storm also tossed around FEMA trailers that had replaced homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and damaged dozens of homes and businesses, Westwego Mayor Robert Billiot said.
Public, private and parochial schools in Westwego closed. Xavier University in New Orleans shut down for the day because it had no power, spokesman Warren Bell said.
Several homes collapsed in other areas, officials said, and at least three people were taken to hospitals.
In New Orleans, the storm knocked down power lines and tree limbs and damaged roofs. About 20,000 people were without power in New Orleans, Westwego, and Metairie, a spokesman for Entergy Corp. said.
"There is just so much destruction," Billiot said.
Kevin Gillespie's trailer in Westwego was pulled five feet and shoved next to his steps so he couldn't open the door. The Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer behind his was pulled from its moorings and flipped into his back yard, Gillespie said.
"My next-door neighbors, they had just moved back into their house from (Hurricane) Katrina. Now it's totaled out again," he said.
He didn't know how badly his own belongings were damaged; a crew had only just cut off the gas. But the storm removed every vehicle he owned: "My car, pickup, motorbike and trailer all went away."
Still, he said, as dawn arrived, "The more damage I see there, the more fortunate we are."
At one point, emergency workers in New Orleans' uptown neighborhood scrambled to clear a downed magnolia tree so an ambulance could get by.
John Carolan, 50, who lives in the neighborhood, said he was awakened by the storm and got up in time to get into a closet with his wife.
"Ten seconds and it was over," he said.
He said the storm blew the furniture from his porch into the street.
Radar data provides "pretty convincing evidence there was a tornado," said meteorologist Robert Ricks in the National Weather Service office in Slidell. He said the damage appeared to be from one storm cell that was behind a squall line moving east, he said.
"It should be an improving trend the rest of the day," Ricks said.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
