US midsection grapples with treacherous ice storm

Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo.

Parts of the central U.S. grappled Saturday with a second day of road-glazing ice and braced for more of the treacherous, below-freezing wintry weather expected to close out the holiday weekend.

The storm created travel headaches for many people who opted to go out despite pleas by authorities to stay put.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said Interstate 40 was closed in two places in western portions of the state because of wrecks, including the jackknifing of several semitrailers in icy conditions in Caddo County. A 45-year-old Oklahoma City man died Saturday after his semitrailer struck two others on icy I-40 in Custer County and then was hit by a car. The patrol is investigating the wreck.

Saturday’s storm followed another a day earlier that dumped freezing rain from Oklahoma to southern Illinois. The National Weather Service said swaths of Kansas and Missouri – both broadly still under ice storm warnings Saturday – could see a third wave of sleet and freezing drizzle today. Complicating matters were temperatures forecast in many cases to remain near or below freezing.

Ice buildups of one-quarter to slightly less than a half inch were expected overnight and this morning from southeastern Kansas to central Missouri.

State troopers in Missouri and other affected states were pressing motorists to limit travel to only necessary outings, allowing road crews the space to treat the slippery mess. Many appeared to heed that advice, drawing kudos from the Missouri Department of Transportation, which scrambled around the clock to mitigate the glazed roads.