Snow buries Ohio, cancels events and air travel

Snow buries Ohio, cancels events and air travel

Columbus got more than 20 inches of snow, breaking a record set in 1910.

COLUMBUS (AP) — A record-setting snowstorm buried the city and many parts of Ohio on Saturday, shutting down highways around the state and stranding travelers in airports.

The heavy late-winter storm, which rolled in Friday, dumped 20.4 inches of snow on the state’s capital, breaking the previous record of 15.3 inches of snow in a single storm set in February 1910, the National Weather Service said.

Cincinnati and Cleveland also received about a foot of snow. Wind up to 35 mph whipped the snow and cut visibility to less than a quarter mile in many places.

A winter storm warning was in effect for most Ohio counties through the evening, and Gov. Ted Strickland urged motorists, who faced whiteout conditions, to avoid unnecessary travel.

The storm was blamed for at least one death, and 1,914 crashes were reported to the Ohio Highway Patrol.

“We will get through this,” Strickland said. “The snow will stop, the wind will cease, and the sun will shine. But until that happens we need to be smart, take care of ourselves and attempt to be helpful to others.”

About 1,200 state snowplows were deployed, and the cleanup was expected to continue today, authorities said.

“It’s horrible out there right now,” said 58-year-old Carman Bonfiglio, a FedEx Corp. driver who was stranded at a truck stop in Sunbury, about 20 miles northeast of Columbus. “Trucks are just spinning right here. In my days of driving I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The storm was heaviest along a band that roughly follows Interstate 71 from Cincinnati through Columbus on to Cleveland. In central Ohio’s Pickaway County, a 49-year-old woman in a sport utility vehicle ran off an icy, snow-covered road and hit a utility pole Friday night and was killed, the sheriff’s office said.

Most activities were canceled or postponed Saturday, including girls high school basketball championship games in Columbus. The University of Cincinnati men’s basketball team, unable to make its departure flight, postponed its game at No. 13 Connecticut until today.

All flights in and out of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport were canceled Saturday, airport spokesman Todd Payne said. Crews struggled all day at to clear the runways.

“There was really no reason to keep it open,” Payne said. “We have 30-mile-an-hour sustained winds.”

The airport, which has about 250 daily flights on the weekends, was scheduled to reopen at 5 a.m. today, but flight delays were possible, he said.

At Port Columbus International Airport, a plane making a landing skidded off the runway for several hundred feet Friday night, said airport spokeswoman Angie Neal. No one was injured.

A warm-up was not expected until Tuesday, when the forecast called for temperatures in the lower 40s, the weather service said.

Flooding could be a concern if it warms up too quickly, said Nancy Dragoni, director of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.

“We’re hopeful that there’ll be enough time for some of the water to go down in the rivers and creeks and streams so we can absorb the snow when it melts,” she said.

Winter storm warnings were in effect from eastern Kentucky to upstate New York and northern Maine, the National Weather Service said. Wind up to 35 mph whipped the snow and cut visibility to less than a quarter-mile in places, the weather service said.

“We’re getting a lot of drifting and poor visibility out here,” said Ohio State Highway Patrol Sgt. Rod Moser in Circleville, Ohio. Two semitrailers jackknifed on Interstate 71, about 20 miles south of Columbus, he said.

Thirteen inches of snow fell on north-central Kentucky’s Owen County, the National Weather Service said. Louisville, Ky., and Middle Tennessee got up to a foot, the weather service said. Up to a foot was possible by today in western New York, meteorologists said. Even Mississippi got 5 to 7 inches of snow in northern parts of the state, the weather service said.

It was the deepest snow at Louisville since a storm in February 1998 dumped 22 inches over three days, the weather service said.

The wind piled snow into drifts as much as 5 feet high in parts of central Kentucky, police dispatcher John Woosley said.

It was a continuation of the storm that on Friday piled up snow a foot deep in Arkansas and blacked out thousands of homes and businesses from that state to the Great Lakes.

In addition to the one traffic death in Ohio, the weather was blamed for two deaths in western New York state and one in Tennessee. Two people were killed as tornadoes struck several Florida communities.

At Port Columbus International Airport, a plane skidded a few hundred feet off a runway while landing late Friday, but no one was hurt, airport spokeswoman Angie Neal said.

More than 100 motorists had to be rescued from stuck vehicles during the night in Louisville, said Kerri Richardson, a spokeswoman for Mayor Jerry Abramson. Kentucky had about 1,000 plows on state roads, said Chuck Wolfe of the highway department.