Blizzard, freezing rain hammer Kansas
Staff and Wire Reports
Saturday, March 28, 2009
An early spring blizzard howled across Kansas on Friday, closing sections of several major highways and coating parts of the state with branch-breaking ice. Traffic accidents were reported throughout the state, including one that left a Hillsboro woman dead.
Only scattered parts of Kansas were spared from sleet and heavy snow, but winds gusting to 40 mph or more were enough to swirl even a few inches of snow into whiteout conditions. In the northeast, residents and public works departments hurried Friday evening to prepare for the storm’s expected arrival today.
Emporia was one of those few locations spared from the brunt of the storm. Emporia woke up early Saturday morning with a coating of ice on the trees, a few slick spots but no snow on the ground. The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office worked several non-injury accidents Friday. No injury accidents were listed on the log.
Sgt. Mark Summey of the Emporia Police Department said this morning officers did not work any accidents overnight in Emporia and only worked a couple Friday.
“Actually I think we dodged the bullet on this one,” Summey said.
Southwest and south-central Kansas got the worst of the weather that began blowing in from southeast Colorado and the Oklahoma Panhandle early Friday. The far southwestern towns of Hugoton and Ulysses both reported 14 inches as of Friday night. Satanta, also in the far southwest, had 12 inches of snow and drifts of 4 to 6 feet at midafternoon.
Slightly to the northeast, Garden City had 16 inches as of 9 p.m.
Snow and sleet began piling up in south-central sections as the storm moved eastward. Hutchinson received 7 inches of snow in six hours, while a police officer in Kingman reported zero visibility in a 6-inch snowfall Friday evening.
Marion County Sheriff Robert Craft said drivers should stay off the roads “unless it’s absolutely necessary to go out.”
“And if you do have to go out, don’t be in a hurry,” Craft said. “Go slow and go cautious.”
Craft identified the woman killed in a Friday afternoon crash in his county as 58-year-old Sharon Chamberlain. He said Chamberlain was riding in a car driven by her husband on a county road south of Hillsboro when a southbound sport utility vehicle slid into their car.
Chamberlain’s husband and the 23-year-old SUV driver were taken to hospitals, but Craft didn’t know the extent of their injuries.
“At the time of the accident, the roadway was covered with ice and it was extremely slick,” Craft said “I don’t believe either vehicle was going excessive speeds.”
Marion County was still in the storm’s thrall Friday night, with a half-inch of sleet falling in 30 minutes.
Four counties surrounding the Wichita area — Marion, Butler, Harvey and Cowley — issued local disaster declarations as first steps to request state help, according to the Kansas Adjutant General’s office.
About 1,600 customers in the Cowley County town of Arkansas City lost electricity as ice snapped branches and power lines. Outages were also reported in El Dorado and Salina as well as Wichita County in western Kansas, but durations and numbers of customers affected weren’t available.
Grocery and hardware stores had plenty of business ahead of the storm, and many truckers hunkered down at travel plazas or motels to wait it out. But some businesses suffered as the snow forced the closings of roads, or of the stores themselves.
Pratik Patel, manager of an Econo Lodge in Hutchinson, said the storm was driving away more business than it was attracting. Two or three people checked in because of the weather, but guests in 11 rooms left early and the hotel had received nine cancellations by Friday evening.
“Normally the weekends are busy,” Patel said. “But because of the snow, people who might have come might not.”
The snow didn’t surprise him, though. He said he’s come to expect this kind of weather just as spring starts.
“I’ve been here four years, and I mark it down every year,” he said.
The Kansas Department of Transportation said several highways were closed in southwest Kansas due to poor visibility and blowing snow, including long stretches of such major routes as U.S. 83, 183 and 283; U.S. 54; U.S. 50; and U.S. 56.
Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the adjutant general and director of the Kansas Department of Emergency Management, warned motorists to avoid travel Friday and today in hard-hit areas. A number of Kansas National Guard members were ready to be mobilized and equipment had been stockpiled in strategic areas, he said.