CHICAGO — A powerful storm brought heavy snow and biting winds to parts of the Midwest on Wednesday, leading to the cancellation of hundreds of flights in and out of Chicago and the closure of schools in districts in several states.
Airlines cancelled more than 1,000 flights to and from Chicago’s major airports. Most cancellations were at O’Hare, but Southwest Airlines cancelled all of its departures out of Midway for the day. It was snowing hard in the city before noon, and city officials said they would deploy Chicago’s full fleet of 300 snowplows for the evening rush hour.
The heaviest snow was expected to hit northern Indiana, where powerful winds blowing off of Lake Michigan could keep snow piling up past midnight and bury the area in up to 18 inches. The wind were so strong, they even caused the Saginaw River in Michigan swell and appear to flow backward, though it remained well below flood stage, The Bay City Times reported.
The winter weather warnings from the National Weather Service also stretched southwest through all of Illinois and into Missouri, where several inches had fallen by early morning, leading to school closures and downing power lines. Blizzard warnings were posted for counties in eastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana.
By mid-morning, real estate agent Debora Auble had shoveled snow and salted sidewalks at three homes and her downtown office in Champaign, Illinois. She wasn’t exactly enjoying it.
“No, not at all. To be in and out of it is pretty brutal,” she said as police cleaned up following what appeared a minor traffic accident outside her office caused by slick roads. “And the roads are really treacherous. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the snow blowing that you can’t see the traffic lights.”
Just about every school was closed in Champaign. But students at the University of Illinois, which almost never closes, had to trudge through biting, wet snow.
Bands of heavy snow extending from St. Louis to Chicago caused several semis to jack-knife and power lines to fall on Illinois highways. Winds left behind 3-foot-high snow drifts on one interstate. The state police said travelling was “extremely dangerous” and urged people not to venture out unless they had an emergency.
Some schools also closed in Michigan and Indiana.
“It’s a good thing we closed,” said Superintendent Tom Fletcher of the Twin Lakes School Corp. in Indiana. “Our roads are ice-covered and the wind’s howling and the rain and the snow is coming down.”
Michigan closed many state government offices, but kept its Emergency Operations Center open to manage the water crisis in the city of Flint and monitor the storm. The state kept open bottled water and filter distribution sites in Flint, which is under a state of emergency because of its lead-contaminated water supply.
Flint was expected to get 8 to 12 inches of snow, and officials urged residents to make sure they have enough filters, cartridges and bottled water on hand.
Motorists were warned that there could be no visibility at times on the state’s roadways.
The winds sent high waves crashing into shorelines on both sides of Lake Michigan, with forecasters warning Chicago area residents to expect minor flooding and beach erosion.
