US weathers snowstorms, power outages, jammed airports as winter arrives

Source: Agencies  |   2008-12-22  |     ONLINE EDITION

WEEKEND storms in the US's northern half knocked out power to thousands of consumers yesterday and created nightmarish conditions for holiday travelers coast to coast on the first official day of winter.

Gusty winds in the Midwest, where wind chills dipped to minus 30 or lower, produced whiteout conditions that contributed to at least three vehicle pileups in Wisconsin and Michigan.

And blizzard warnings were issued for parts of Maine, where up to 61 centimeters of snow was expected. Forecasters warned that strong winds could create whiteout conditions and deep drifts.

"This is a classic nor'easter," said meteorologist John Cannon. "It's got all the features."

Parts of Iowa and Illinois were under blizzard warnings. Power was knocked out to more than 35,000 customers yesterday in Illinois shortly after being restored to most who had lost it after a storm last week, utilities said.

"There was so much icing down there on the trees and power lines; then the wind is coming through and knocking things down," said ComEd spokeswoman Kim Johnson.

More than 70,000 homes and businesses in Indiana remained in the dark after an ice storm that struck on Thursday. Wind gusts topping 50 kilometers-an-hour hindered repair work, officials said.

Wind gusts up to 56 kilometers-an-hour blew snow and contributed to crashes involving at least 30 vehicles yesterday in southwestern Michigan on Interstate 94, a major route between Chicago and Detroit, officials said. One man died in the pileup, which shut down 10 kilometers of eastbound lanes north of Stevensville, state police said.

At least four semitrailer trucks and about a dozen cars crashed on a 1.6-kilometer stretch of Interstate 94 in neighboring Van Buren County, said state police Sergeant David Van Lopick. At least eight people were admitted to hospitals, he said.

More than 20 vehicles were involved in a pileup yesterday on Interstate 43 in Wisconsin's Ozaukee County that briefly shut down southbound lanes. Eight people were injured, but nearly all had been treated and released, officials said.

Even hardy Minnesotans buckled to the cold, calling off a Minneapolis holiday parade yesterday that is automatically canceled if the wind chill dips below minus 20.

The storm battering Maine also produced sleet and freezing rain in New York and New Jersey, delaying flights at Newark Airport by an average of two hours. Some arrivals at Logan International Airport in Boston were delayed by more than three hours.

And as the weather interfered with airports in Northern states, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston had delays on average of about five hours.

While officials in the Pacific Northwest were relieved yesterday that a storm there failed to meet expectations, hundreds of travelers nonetheless lingered at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, waiting for their next flight.

Interstate 90, Washington state's main east-west route, reopened yesterday across Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Range.

Washington Emergency Management spokesman Rob Harper said fewer than 5,000 customers lost power, and state officials said county emergency operations were scaling back or closing.

"I'm specially concerned by the fact that our forecast, already very dark ... will be even darker if not enough fiscal stimulus is implemented," he said in an interview with BBC radio yesterday. The IMF has called for higher government spending and temporary tax cuts worth US$120 trillion, or 2 percent of world annual economic output, to escape the worst economic downturn since the 1930s Great Depression.

RACE TO ZERO

Japan is just a step away from zero rates and some economists believe more dismal data expected later this week may force the central bank to return to its policy of flooding banks with cash to inflate the economy, which it abandoned only in 2006.