Chicago – Utility crews worked overtime Saturday to restore electrical service to thousands of customers still blacked out by the Midwest’s first big snowstorm of the season.
As temperatures plummeted below freezing in the storm’s aftermath, officials said some people could be without power for days.
Missouri National Guard teams went door-to-door in the St. Louis area to make sure residents were surviving the cold.
The storm was blamed for at least 13 deaths as it spread ice and deep snow from Texas to Michigan and then blew through the Northeast late Friday and early Saturday. Schools and businesses were shuttered and hundreds of airline passengers had been stranded by canceled flights.
Nearly 600 Amtrak passengers in Illinois and Missouri were delayed up to 10 hours Friday and Saturday morning, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said.
With many tracks still strewn with downed trees and power lines, passengers were taken by bus to their final destinations.
Trees were blown onto homes and cars, and a big Christmas tree in front of the New Hampshire Statehouse was toppled.
Truck driver David Huwe just got his 18-wheeler and load of frozen food back on the road Saturday after being stuck for more than 12 hours at a rest stop near Princeton, Ill., on Interstate 80, which was blocked by scores of vehicles that slid off the icy road.
“I was supposed to be (in California) Sunday night,” Huwe said by cellphone Saturday morning. He had revised his arrival time and hoped he’d make it by Monday.
Red Cross volunteers at Decatur had helped out some of those stranded I-80 travelers by ordering 100 McDonald’s hamburgers, which were then airlifted by the National Guard.
Many areas of Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri got more than a foot of snow, including 16 inches in parts of central Missouri and 17 at Manistee, Mich. Fifteen inches fell south in Bartlesville, Okla.
Airlines were recovering from widespread cancellations; delays at Lambert Airport in St. Louis were generally 15 minutes or less Saturday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
There were no measurable delays Saturday at Chicago’s two major airports, said Wendy Abrams, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation.
Highways were mostly clear but still had icy spots. Chicago sent out about 170 snow-removal trucks Saturday morning to clear the city’s side streets, after clearing main roads Friday.
Storm-related traffic deaths included two in Missouri, one in Kansas and one in Oklahoma. Near Paducah, Texas, a vehicle carrying high school girls basketball players overturned on an icy highway, killing a 14-year- old player and injuring seven other people.
