February 26, 2013 -- Updated 1651 GMT (0051 HKT)
A blizzard that whipped the southern Plains set its sights on Kansas,
Missouri and Illinois, where it's expected to dump a foot of snow
Tuesday. FULL STORY
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CNN iReport
February 26, 2013 -- Updated 1602 GMT (0002 HKT)
Millions in Midwest clean up after storm
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- "We're in such a mess," mayor of Woodward, Oklahoma, says
- The storm has left more than 25,000 customers without power in Kansas City
- At least three people are dead because of the storm, officials say
- Wichita, Kansas, breaks a 100-year record for February snowfall -- in six days
Nine hours and four minutes, to be precise.
Prince and his co-driver
were due in California at 1 p.m. Tuesday, where they were going to drop
off 25,000 pounds of frozen pizza.
But they stumbled on what the National Weather Service is calling "a crippling, historic blizzard."
"It was pretty nasty when we first got into it," he said. "But then it turned into a whiteout."
Prince, who has been a long-haul driver for nine years, said in a submission to CNN's iReport he'd never seen it so bad. The line of trucks on the westbound side of the interstate was five to six miles long.
A day later, three people
were dead, and 21 states and 45 million people were under some form of
winter weather watch, warning or advisory.
gobs of wet, heavy snow plopped to the ground in the Kansas City area along the Kansas and Missouri border.
gobs of wet, heavy snow plopped to the ground in the Kansas City area along the Kansas and Missouri border.
The piling snow snapped
tree branches, brought down power lines and made it tough for snow plows
and utility crews to keep up. Power outages doubled to 25,000 before
dawn, Kansas City Power and Light said. Most flights out of Kansas City International Airport were canceled.
It was the second major
winter storm to pummel the region in as many weeks, and it could bring
up to 18 inches of snow to parts of Kansas, Missouri and Illinois a day
after plastering Oklahoma and Texas. Winter storm watches and warnings
stretched from Oklahoma to Michigan.
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"Schools are closed, and
I don't think there's a snow shovel in place in the area to be found,"
said Sly James, the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri.
The Kansas National Guard warned that continued snowfall and gusty winds would make travel tricky through Wednesday.
In Woodward, Oklahoma,
emergency vehicles were still having trouble getting around Tuesday, a
day after the storm dropped more than 15 inches of snow.
Crews dispatched to a
house fire Monday had trouble reaching the home because of 4-foot
snowdrifts. The snowplow sent to free the firefighters also got stuck.
Even Tuesday, emergency vehicles still were having a tough time getting
around.
"We're in such a mess," Woodward Mayor Roscoe Hill said.
At least three people have died because of the storm: one in Woodward when a roof collapsed, Hill said.
The other two deaths
came in Kansas on Monday in separate weather-related accidents on
Interstate 70. One accident happened in Sherman County and the other in
Ellis County, the Kansas National Guard said.
Whiteout conditions
The storm follows one
last week that paralyzed a broad swath of the Plains and Midwest with
more than a foot of snow. Parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and other
states were affected.
The storm prompted a
state of emergency declaration in Kansas and parts of Oklahoma, bringing
whiteout conditions to southern parts of those states and Texas.
Schools in Wichita,
Kansas, were closed Tuesday for a fourth straight day after last week's
storm, which dumped a record 14.2 inches on the city. Wichita has
received 21 inches of snow in February, breaking a record that had stood
for 100 years, the National Weather Service said. And it all fell in
the past six days.
Amarillo, Texas, not far
from where Prince was stuck, saw 19 inches of snow Monday, along with
fierce winds whipped snow into whiteout conditions.
By Monday night, though, conditions had improved in the Texas panhandle.
"Things have cleared up now," said CNN iReporter Julie Swift,
a student at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview. "The snow is
starting to melt and the roads are improving. It's still very windy,
though."
Rain, ice elsewhere
Also on tap for Tuesday:
up to 7 inches of much-needed snow in the Chicago and Detroit areas;
high winds in Tennessee, North Carolina and southern Virginia; the
threat of ice in West Virginia; and more drenching rain in the
Southeast, the National Weather Service said.
In the Southeast, gusty winds and flooding were the concerns.
In Mobile, Alabama, the
storm was expected to bring heavy rain and 30 mph wind gusts early
Tuesday. Tornado watches were up in southeast Georgia and parts of
Florida through Tuesday afternoon. Flood watches and warnings were in
place from Louisiana to South Carolina.
CNN's Brandon Miller, Erin McPike, Ric Ward, Janet DiGiacomo, Greg Botelho and Henry Hanks contributed to this report.
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