Snow and ice coat the South
Interstates shut down, schools closed across the region
ATLANTA — Winter weather turned travel treacherous across the South, shutting down interstates in Louisiana, causing highway crashes in Kentucky and closing airport runways in Texas as snow turned the red clay white and prompted schools to close across the region.
Snow was falling Tuesday afternoon in a wide band that stretched from southeast Texas all the way to western Massachusetts.
What looked like about 1 inch of snow covered the hood of Glenn Springfield’s truck when he went outside Tuesday morning in northeast Louisiana, he said. Springfield, a spokesman for the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office, said the worst highway conditions were about 100 miles west of him — but the snow was heading east.
“We’re just advising people that if you don’t have to work, stay home,” Springfield said.
Dangerous wind chills prompted school systems to close Tuesday across Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas and Missouri. Some colleges also canceled classes, including Wichita State University in Kansas, where wind chill values were expected to drop as low as minus 13 degrees, the National Weather Service said.
Governors’ offices in Alabama and Louisiana said state offices would close today because of dangerous cold that forecasters said would follow the snow. Forecasters said travel could be difficult in north Georgia because of below zero wind chills.
In Kentucky, multiple crashes closed a 10-mile section of Interstate 24 in the western part of the state and blocked southbound lanes of Interstate 65 in the south, including a five-vehicle pileup involving a Greyhound bus that injured multiple people.