Winter storms bedevil travel

Nine die in light aircraft crash, bodies of two children found, third child missing

WINTRY weather bedevilled Thanksgiving weekend travellers across the US on Saturday as a powerful and dangerous storm moved eastwards, dumping heavy snow from parts of California to the northern Midwest and inundating other areas with rain.

The authorities found the bodies of two young children, including a 5-year-old boy, and a third child was missing in central Arizona after a vehicle was swept away while attempting to cross a swollen creek.

A storm-related death also was reported in South Dakota.

And in South Dakota, a smallengine plane carrying 12 people crashed, killing nine on board and leaving three injured. Peter Knudson of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the Pilatus PC-12 crashed about 12.30pm on Saturday, shortly after taking off from Chamberlain, about 225km west of Sioux Falls.

Knudson said the weather would be among several factors reviewed by

NTSB investigators, but no cause had yet been determined. He said inclement weather was also making travel to the crash site difficult.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service said the storm was expected to drop 15cm to 30cm of snow from the northern Plains states into Minnesota, Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

Blizzard conditions early on Saturday were already buffeting the High Plains. The city of Duluth, Minnesota, issued a “no travel advisory” beginning at noon on Saturday because of a major snowstorm it termed “historic”.

Duluth officials asked the public to be patient as ploughs cleared roadways and recommended that drivers stay off the roads to prevent accidents, and let officers respond more quickly to emergencies.

Further south, rain and thunderstorms were forecast along and ahead of the cold front, with heavy rainfall possible on Saturday in parts of the Tennessee and Ohio valleys.

Forecasters said a new storm was expected to bring California over a metre of mountain snow, rain and gusty winds throughout the weekend. Another system was forecast to develop in the mid-Atlantic yesterday into today.

Airlines at O’Hare and Midway international airports in Chicago reported average delays of 15 minutes as a storm headed towards the Midwest, with heavy snow and ice and gusty winds.

The companies said they had cancelled 27 flights at O’Hare and two at Midway, as people scrambled to get home on the year’s busiest travel weekend.

At Denver International Airport, 100 flights were cancelled on Saturday because of high winds.

“Tomorrow (Sunday), the airlines anticipate to be the busiest travel day of the Thanksgiving period at both O’Hare and Midway airports,” said Karen Pride, a spokesperson for the

Chicago Department of Aviation. “Everybody thinks the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest; it is not.”

The authorities in the western states were still grappling on Saturday with the aftermath of heavy rains and snow over the weekend.

In Arizona, officials found the body of the 5-year-old about 5km downstream from where the vehicle they were riding in was swept away on Friday, said Gila county sheriff’s Lieutenant Virgil Dodd. The second of the three children turned up later on Saturday. The sheriff’s office didn’t provide the age and gender of the second child or the third child, who was still missing late on Saturday afternoon.

Two other children and two adults who were in the vehicle were rescued from a small island and the bank of the creek in Tonto National Forest north-east of Phoenix. Sheriff’s officials initially had said six people, including four children, were rescued on Friday at locations along the creek. |