Heavy snow, blizzard blankets Iowa

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By Times staff and wire services | Thursday, March 1, 2007 11:02 PM CST | () comments

(John Schultz/Quad-City Times) Snow begins to cover Ripley Street in Davenport as Tabitha Sawyer of Eldridge walks to her car after work late Thursday night.

BREAKING NEWS: (Updated 10:35 p.m.) Heavy snow and blizzard conditions, with winds gusting to 50 mph and higher, shut down a large portion of the state Thursday as snow plows were pulled off the roads.

In the Quad-Cities, meteorologist Linda Engebretson of the National Weather Service, Davenport, said that the snow and high winds created conditions that caused visibility to be reduced down to a quarter-mile at times.

“The wind is really whipping the snow around making it hard to see,” she said.

According to the Iowa Department of Transportation, or DOT, travel was not advised on most roads in the western half of the state. Other roads were closed down.

In the Quad-City region most roadways were completely covered in ice or snow. The Scott County Sheriff’s Department closed down U.S. 6 from 20th Avenue to Durant due to water covering the roadway. Late Thursday, a sheriff’s spokesman said county roads were somewhat slick and visibility poor, although they had no reports of any accidents.

Thursday’s storm and road closures left dozens of drivers stranded across the state as authorities prepared for rescue operations expected to last into the morning.

Travel across much of the state was being discouraged.

The Iowa Department of Transportation had closed parts of some major interstate highways. Several state highways also were closed.

Interstate 80 was closed from Des Moines west to the Nebraska border, said Dena Gray-Fisher, a DOT spokeswoman. Westbound lanes of I-80 were closed from Iowa City to Des Moines but were opened in the late afternoon.

Interstate 35 from Ankeny to the Minnesota line also was closed by Thursday afternoon, as was Interstate 29 from the Missouri border to South Dakota. Snow plows had been pulled off the roads in western Iowa because of deteriorating conditions, Gray-Fisher said.

“There are so many cars in the road and semis jackknifed and whiteout conditions that it’s just not safe and they are unable to make any progress,” she said.

While the storm was burying western parts of the state, much of eastern Iowa saw little if any of its effects.

Shane Searcy, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Johnston, said the brunt of the storm was dumping heavy snow in western Iowa, with up to a foot of new snow on the ground in Atlantic. Lesser amounts were being reported to the south and east, with a total accumulation of 2-4 inches expected in the Des Moines area. Areas farther east and south were expected to see little if any snow.

A blizzard warning remained in effect for western and northern Iowa through today, but Searcy said snowfall was expected to taper off overnight with the winds beginning to dissipate by mid-day.

(Times reporter Thomas Geyer contributed to this story.)